Click here to download a DOC copy of this letter for use in your word processor. An Open Letter to our State's Policymakers:
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Our national and state economies have entered what is expected to be one of the longest and deepest downturns in a generation. Noted Connecticut economists are already predicting our state will lose up to 80,000 jobs. State budget deficits are now expected to exceed $6 billion over the next two fiscal years. Perhaps more ominously, structural changes in industries which have historically been important to Connecticut, such as finance, will pose even greater challenges for our state's economic recovery. While this economic downturn may make us long for the good economic times of the last decade-plus, the reality is that our state has been in a prolonged period of economic stagnation for nearly a generation. In 2005, the Connecticut Economic Resource Center published a widely hailed benchmark study of our state's economy. That report found that in Connecticut there had been "no net job growth for the past 15 years." Follow-up studies by the organization have found that our state's job picture has seen no improvement. For too long, policy debates about our state's business climate have been viewed as a zero- sum game, in which pro-business reforms are rejected because they are perceived to come at the expense of some interest group. Such a simplistic view ignores the fact that pro-business measures do more than merely help a business turn a profit; they create jobs and expand employment, generate tax revenues, and help fund important government programs and non-profit organizations. In Washington, DC, many political leaders are calling for a new "post-partisanship" period for our nation, Connecticut policymakers should follow their lead and adopt a new attitude that reverses the perception that Connecticut is an unfriendly place to do business and instead encourages economic growth for our state. Businesses, after all, can choose where to put jobs and invest capital. We want them to come here and to stay here. To that end, we urge Connecticut's policymakers, when formulating and executing public policy, always to consider the impact on our state's economy. Will a certain proposal help to create jobs? Will a proposal make our state more or less competitive with other states and countries? Are we as a state doing everything we can to encourage investment? Do the rhetoric and actions of our political leaders welcome businesses and jobs to our state or do they create the impression that Connecticut is hostile to the business community? How these questions are answered will determine whether our great state will become the global economic leader it once was and should be again. |