Push Connecticut down leaderboard of highest taxed states

Time’s winged chariot is hurrying nearer, Gov. Ned Lamont acknowledged in his own way Wednesday. He told legislators, who greeted him with a chorus of Happy Birthday, that turning 69 on Tuesday has him “feeling a little more urgency to get to ‘yes.’ “But yes to what? Somebody may need to bake a policy reveal cake and plan a party to get his attention.

The Greenwich Democrat’s annual State of the State Address to a joint session of the General Assembly was a rambling talk of reminiscences, quips and observations. Lamont used his 20 minutes to bemoan the high cost of living in Connecticut, a subject that had no purchase with him last year during his fourth self-financed statewide campaign.

On Wednesday, Lamont issued a call to increase the supply of energy but offered no proposals or even hints on how to address the looming crisis. Tapping into the nation’s abundant supply of natural gas would be a start to reducing carbon admissions while renewables proliferate. Lamont could begin that effort by lobbying New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to allow the expansion of natural gas lines that run through New York into New England. He might have supported the construction of a natural gas energy plant in Killingly. He did not.

Lamont has begun shining a spotlight on the cost of housing and its impact on economic growth in Connecticut. He’s offered no program or even some coherent ideas on how homes can be built for a reasonable cost and sold for a manageable price. Lamont included some mewling about health insurance companies in his rambling NED Talk — the companies that provide jobs for tens of thousand of Connecticut residents. The governor has at last discovered a limit to his boosterism — one of the state’s largest business sectors.

Top aides to most governors do not stay for a second tern. The jobs are demanding, often consuming and frequently frustrating. Most of Lamont’s original cast of senior advisers left long ago. Others left in the last few weeks. Some to return to their previous careers, a few to try to cash in on their ties to Lamont with jobs outside government.

David Lehman, a commissioner and senior economic adviser, is the most significant departure. Lehman was widely hailed as a policy polymath who inspired confidence in those who dealt with him. The quickest way to Lamont’s wandering attention was to grab Lehman’s. It will take time to discover if the second Lamont administration includes a new Lehman.

The governor made a reference in his address of asides Wednesday to sticking around a little longer. It confirmed what the content of Lamont’s remarks and his demeanor while delivering them

also revealed: This is his last term. There are no urgent policy proposals animating the governor as he begins anew. He called for a “significant middle class tax cut” but skipped the details.

The rest of the winter and most of the spring will be spent trying to define what tax cut meets that definition. Here’s one: a tax cut that takes Connecticut down a few pegs on the leaderboard of highest taxed states. Wednesday provided an opportunity to provide details and begin to explain the benefits such a tax cut would provide a broad swath of state residents. Instead, Lamont closed his speech with an ode to dancing — and his delight in a video of him dancing at his first inaugural prompted 10,000 tweets telling him never to dance in public again.

The start of the new legislative session was shrouded in grief by Thursday morning. State Rep. Quentin “Q” Williams was killed in car crash on his drive home from the inaugural ball. Williams began his third term Wednesday and was seen by all as a rising star and a pleasure to know. Through the despair of his friends and colleagues a portrait emerged of a man who brightened every room he entered and enriched each life he touched.

Initial police accounts indicated Williams’s vehicle was struck on Route 9 in Cromwell by a car traveling north in the southbound lane. The driver of the other car was also killed.

A tragedy can spur action by lawmakers. This one should lead the legislature to make it a priority to take up state Sen. John Fonfara’s proposals to fund more wrongway detection cameras on state roads. It will not mitigate the grief of this tragedy but it would stop others, a fitting tribute to Q Williams.

Kevin F. Rennie, of South Windsor, is a lawyer and a former Republican state senator and representative.