A collegial ending, but tests to come

It’s not often you hear the “C” word mentioned in politics, in either Washington or Hartford.

But “compromise” was key to bipartisan passage of a budget deal in the wee hours Thursday, Connecticut Republicans and Democrats, leaders and rank-and-file, tugging, pushing, massaging and, indeed, compromising their way to a plan for the future.

And guess what happened: Right on cue, at 5:38 a.m., the sun actually did come up. The world had not ended.

The particulars of the deal aside for the moment, the single greatest achievement — and hopeful sign for the future — was the apparent realization on both sides that compromise is not a sign of weakness, particularly when the goal of the enterprise is protecting the common good, an entity larger than any politician’s or party’s self interest.

Last year, stubbornness and a failure on some parts to recognize the responsibility of election to public office, made for a maddening and embarrassing picture of petulance and posturing that left the state without a budget plan for months after its deadline.

“Bipartisanship is something to be celebrated. It’s something to be fostered in the years ahead,” said Gov. Dannel P. Malloy after House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, slammed the gavel down at midnight to end the legislative session.

While the smiles were all around Thursday morning, the bipartisanship needs to be harnessed to work on the gorilla-in-the-room issues that still lurk.

There were wins, for sure — the ban on bump stocks, fortifying health benefits initially established under Obamacare, for two.

And losses — demise of the so-called Time’s Up Act, which would have updated the state’s position on sexual assault and harassment laws, and failure to create an open competitive process for building new gambling casinos in the state.

The legislature took no action on tolls. One way or the other, it must.

One of the gorillas — arguably the largest — is the state’s transportation infrastructure, roads and bridges in particular. Until the legislature confronts that issue and devises a way to pay for massive repairs and improvement, Connecticut will remain at a competitive disadvantage economically.

And that continuing slide toward economic disadvantage was the raison d’etre for the legislature’s creating the 14-member ad hoc Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Growth. The group’s 67-page report unveiled in March, was an unflinching, nonpartisan presentation of where Connecticut stands, both in absolute terms and in comparison with the country.

The commission proposed major tax revisions, ways to reinvigorate the state’s major cities and any number of other large steps.

Here’s what the smiling legislators have to think about over the summer, and be committed to handling on that bipartisan wave when they come back in the fall, an assessment from the commission.

Connecticut’s ability to deal with essential like education, transportation and caring for the vulnerable, is being suffocated by the gorillas of rising debt and unfunded liabilities in benefits to employees.

The commission’s proposals didn’t even get a vote.

While the smiles were all around Thursday morning, the bipartisanship needs to be harnessed to work on the gorilla-in-the-room issues that still lurk.