Gov. Malloy can’t resist a lavish corporate subsidy

Poor Dannel Malloy.

He’s approaching the end of his long run as governor of Connecticut, and the opportunities to shower public money on rich and profitable corporations that don’t need it are coming to an end.

For what may turn out to be his last fix, though, he outdid himself last week, promising Electric Boat, the submarine builder drunk in federal contracts, literally billions of dollars in the pipeline, some $83 million he plans to borrow, to be paid back by Connecticut’s beleaguered taxpayers long after he is gone from office.

Electric Boat, never mind parent General Dynamics, literally is wealthier than Connecticut, if you measure by deficits and swollen pension obligations.

How could the governor so blithely give away so much money at the same time he and members of both parties in the General Assembly are busy undermining some of the most basic responsibilities of the state: educating Connecticut children and helping its most needy?

Malloy has a miserable track record of using incentives to successfully lure or keep employers in Connecticut, money the state can’t afford to spend in the first place.

But in the case of Electric Boat, it is tens of millions of dollars showered on a company that most certainly isn’t going anywhere.

They are worried about signing up enough qualified employees on the aggressive new shipbuilding schedule they’ve agreed to. How in the world would they pick up stakes and replace all they have in the ground here with a new plant somewhere else?

Never mind the timetable. Think of the logistics.

I can’t even imagine what the environmental cleanup would entail and cost here in Connecticut if they did leave. Probably even Gov. Santa Malloy wouldn’t help with that.

Using state money to subsidize one of the richest corporations doing business in Connecticut is preposterous.

Imagine a hotelier who has a regular rich guest who always stays in the $1,000-a-night penthouse, because it has a view of his childhood home. There is no other place like it for him. No other hotel will do.

Would you then decide to give him a 50 percent discount, in thanks, because you are just so happy to have a rich guest all the time?

No, you expect him to pay what the room should cost. Just the way that Electric Boat, with its deep backlog of submarine contracts, developed with the help of politicians sent to Washington by the hardworking, tax--

paying residents of Connecticut, should pay what everyone else does to do business in Connecticut, from paying taxes to improving your property and recruiting and training your workforce.

Gov. Malloy would be well served to look around for things in the state that aren’t working and try to fix them. He doesn’t have to look far, even if he stays around here.

Malloy did just beat Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo to the corporate welfare punch last week, announcing his $83 million subsidy before she could unveil a $34 million incentive package of her own.

Now that Electric Boat is awash in so much public money used to subsidize its exclusive work as a public-sponsored defense contractor, maybe the company could be a better corporate citizen in and around southeastern Connecticut.

Its support of public programs and charities is abysmal, a sad track record given the amount of public money it slurps from government troughs.

That generosity and public spiritedness, so lacking up until now, could begin with a big fat check for the National Coast Guard Museum in New London.

The company that moved to the city after getting a great deal on real estate created by public subsidies, then fought to lower its tax bill, needs to do a lot more for its host community, where its riches and stinginess stand out as an embarrassment.