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Coal in the Stocking
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Business New Haven
1/22/2001
By: BNH
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Much like former President Bill Clinton, Gov. John G. Rowland has been a beneficiary of the remarkable surge in the U.S. economy of the mid- to late 1990s.
In addition to permitting him the latitude to scale back some taxes (though too few, in our view), the good times allowed the state to play sugar daddy to a remarkable array of projects that previously would have been considered the exclusive realm of the private sector.
Plans for the Long Wharf retail mall would have been stillborn without a $40 million state subsidy, although the Nordstrom pullout mooted the project.
Nevertheless, there remains a sense that Connecticut's major cities are “owed” huge sums by state government for projects including the $600 million-plus Adriaen's Landing in Hartford and sweeping harborfront redevelopment in Bridgeport.
But times have changed, and the thinking at the state Capitol must change with it. Beyond the fact that budget surpluses necessarily mean over-taxation, the fact that the NASDAQ shed a third of its value between last March and year's end foretells leaner times ahead - even here in the nation's richest state.
The example of the Stratford Festival Theatre (see below) illustrates what can happen when well-intentioned state officials are unwittingly maneuvered into the role of lender of first and last resort for projects the private sector wisely sidestep. State officials must begin to apply more stringent standards to investment in speculative urban projects. At the same time, politicians in the state's largest cities must begin to ratchet up the ratio of private to public investment needed to bring their more grandiose visions to fruition.
Because state government may not be able to play Santa Claus to the cities much longer.
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