Welcome to The Hartford Portfolio, Yankee Institute’s update on what’s happening at the State Capitol during the legislative session. Here’s some of what we saw in Hartford this week: CT’s one-bedroom “mansions” Governor Lamont has […]
A proposed bill would give state agencies new powers to sue private employers—and would let the state labor commissioner steer a portion of the proceeds to hand-picked labor unions. The legislation (HB 5245) is designed […]
Welcome to The Hartford Portfolio, Yankee Institute’s update on what’s happening at the State Capitol during the legislative session. Here’s some of what we saw in Hartford this week: The General Assembly’s Finance, Revenue and […]
Welcome to The Hartford Portfolio, Yankee Institute’s update on what’s happening at the State Capitol during the legislative session. Session is in full swing with committees meeting to discuss which bills they will be voting […]
Nearly two years after the 2020 presidential election ignited a national firestorm of election fraud claims that culminated with the January 6 riot at the Capitol by protesters, the Connecticut Office of the Secretary of […]
Parents and school children enthusiastic over the lifting of face mask mandates after February 28 shouldn’t toss their masks out yet. That’s because the country is still under a 2021 federal order requiring that face […]
Members of the New Britain Board of Education say they were pushed by the State of Connecticut toward using Construction Advocacy Professionals, a construction management firm that employed the daughter of former Office of Policy […]
Carol Platt Liebau, Yankee Institute’s president, was published in the Connecticut Post February 14. The governor had good news when he addressed the General Assembly at its opening session last week: After a rough stretch, […]
Carol Platt Liebau, Yankee Institute’s president, was published in the CT Examiner February 12. You may not have heard the story about the big corporation that sold health insurance coverage for Connecticut local government workers […]
Welcome to The Hartford Portfolio, Yankee Institute’s update on what’s happening at the State Capitol during the legislative session. This year is known as a “short session” because it generally runs from February through May in even-numbered […]
The Connecticut State Legislature will begin its 2023 session on January 4th and will adjourn on June 7th. The “long session,” as non-election years are called in Hartford, will be centered around the biennial budget. The Office of the State Comptroller reports that state government found a way to spend $47.11 billion in 2022 and, if trends continue, we can expect that number to grow even more going forward. Concerns over energy prices, inflation, and general cost of living continue to dominate the headlines and the threat of a recession hovers over economic forecasts.
What will our elected officials be working on to improve policy outcomes for Connecticut residents? What tax reform proposals will there be? What can be done to lower home heating bills? How will state and local budgets be affected by fewer federal resources? How will schools be implementing to curriculum requirements?
While we wait to see the thousands of individual and committee bills that while dominate the myriad policy debates this year, Yankee Institute is hard at work promoting free-market solutions to the problems we face from Stamford to Putnam and Mystic to Salisbury. To that end, we have produced a new edition of our Charter for Change. The Charter provides commonsense reforms to make Connecticut’s government work for its residents.
Though the list of reforms may be exhausting to review, it is far from exhaustive! And that’s why we want to work with you to build a broad-based coalition to encourage sound policy reforms to enable Connecticut residents to forge a better future for themselves and their families.
It’s also imperative that we do so. As we noted in a report and CT Mirror op-ed last year, the debate over whether we’re in a national recession really misses the point for Connecticut residents. We had more people employed in the private sector in 2007 than we do today. Our economy has grown at one of the slowest rates in the nation for the past decade, and we are getting outpaced year after year. We’re not attracting innovation and industry. We’re losing some of our best and brightest as they seek other parts of the country where it’s easier to make a living.
But together, we can reverse this trend.
At Yankee Institute, we know Connecticut is a state with boundless opportunity, and we intend to help make our state more than a place where people are just able to make ends meet! Connecticut should be a place where everyone can thrive – and with your help, it will be.