Is Connecticut too risky for insurance giant?

What would Mark Twain say about Aetna’s decision to move its corporate headquarters from Hartford to New York? Twain was so entranced by Hartford while living there in 1882 that he opined that it “has a larger population than any city in America except Ne

Hartford’s population recently stumbled to fourth in Connecticut when it was surpassed by Stamford. It was once among the richest cities in America; now it is among the poorest. Aetna’s incorporation in Hartford in 1853 contributed to the city’s nickname “The Insurance Capital of the World.” Now, that expired boast is a mockery of the condition of not only Hartford, but Connecticut.

Aetna was once synonymous with Hartford. Morgan Gardner Bulkeley, son of the insurance giant’s first president, became the city’s mayor before being elected governor and U.S. senator. Following his political career, he served as Aetna’s president for 43 years.

This all might have left Mr. Twain speechless.

Connecticut’s defenders can downplay the defection by underscoring that only 250 jobs are packing up for Chelsea, leaving the majority of Aetna’s 6,000 employees in Connecticut. But Aetna didn’t merely fire blanks in this warning shot. It didn’t just leave a bruise.

Those 250 people are executives and managers. They are the innovators and digital visionaries. They take the company’s top salaries with them, along with visions for growth. Make no mistake, that future will not be in Connecticut. Experts in insurance know a thing or two about playing the safest bet.

Like General Electric, which shifted jobs to Boston last year, Aetna is calling Connecticut out on its fatal failure to get its house in order.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy tried to find a tone that sought to convey assurance about the remaining jobs, but couldn’t help but communicate the subtext “Don’t blame me.”

“... This is an important reminder that to be competitive, Connecticut state government must immediately take the necessary steps to produce a balanced biennial budget with recurring measures to reduce spending and structural solutions to our long-term problems,” Malloy said in a statement.

Connecticut needs to save many of its cities, not just Hartford. It will never compete with New York or Boston, but it can embrace that it is essentially a suburb to those metropolises.

Members of the General Assembly have already failed their constituents at a time when they hold Connecticut’s future in their hands. They are again hypnotized by the clock ticking toward their deadline, as past practice has conditioned them to act only when midnight approaches. The rest of us know that “Tick, tick, tick” sometimes ends in “boom.”

Mark Twain might have been hushed by a generation of missteps that have tainted Connecticut’s status in the world, but he once summoned words that are still appropriate for our legislators: “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy tried to find a tone that sought to convey assurance about the remaining jobs, but couldn’t help but communicate the subtext “Don’t blame me.”