On today’s Morning Joe, a skeptical Mika Brzezinski questioned Connecticut governor Dan Malloy’s assertion that “businesses are supportive” of his proposed budget, which includes $1.5 billion in tax increases. When Brzezinski argued that businesses are moving to the South for more business-friendly climes, Malloy dismissed the competition.
“We’re never going to lead in low-precision manufacturing,” he said. “We’re going to continue to lead in high-precision manufacturing. Hey, listen: You want to buy a sub, you come to Connecticut. You want to buy a jet engine, you come to Connecticut.”
“I know,” Brzezinski replied, “I covered all the sub layoffs year after year after year, and I wonder, ‘How do we get ourselves into the future?’”
Presumably, Malloy was referring to United Technologies when he boasted of the state’s jet engines. That company’s big wigs said only a year ago that “anyplace outside of Connecticut” was less expensive than the Nutmeg State.
On a somewhat related note, Megan McArdle cites Robert Frank’s Wall Street Journal essay on blue states’ fiscal travails and adds, “This is one of the reasons that we can’t fix all our budget problems with higher taxes on the rich — if we do that, revenues are going to collapse dangerously every time there’s a recession.”
Watch Brzezinski and Malloy’s exchange below.