On this Labor Day Weekend 2023, it is apropos to remember that many minion-type Connecticut Taxpayers support the State of Connecticut to nurture a vast economic wasteland. This wasteland is better known as the “Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development”, better known as the "DECD". The DECD has had a history of serious problems including, but not limited to, its annual audits. For many years the DECD also has had massive problems when it comes to the economic tasks of what it was supposedly created to do. For example, from 2011 to 2017 over $1.8 billion dollars was spent by the state in many different so-called “economic development” programs. During that same period, job growth was the slowest in the nation and Connecticut was last or nearly last in most business and economic categories in the country. Worse yet, the DECD did not start undergoing audits until 2017. Its first audit and every audit since then has shown many issues and problems that have never been resolved year and year out. But year in and year out, the same Connecticut Taxpayers underwrite this debacle and failure of a true politically tainted and inept state-run agency.
What happened in these audits? Some examples include (but are not limited to), the following:
The DECD overstated the number of jobs created and or retained along with the financial and economic impact of these same programs. The DECD did not properly check out companies requesting loans by giving loans and in some cases second loans even though the companies did not meet job creation requirements and/or were not making payments on their loans. Between 2020 and 2022, audits showed that the DECD omitted statutorily required information, and had unsupported data and economic impact analyses. For a responsible private sector firm, such continual misrepresentation and possible fraud would result in fines and likely jail terms. A great deal of audit issues are public knowledge and have been raised in the past by myself and by my good friend Tony De Angelo on his weekly Tuesday A.M. segment on the Lee Elci Show on 94.9FM.
As Tony likes to say, “if you like Peanut Butter, you will love Skippy!” , so needless to say, the latest audit states that "The report by State Auditors John Geragosian and Clark Chapin says the DECD omitted statutorily required information by failing to report the economic impact of incentives administered by Connecticut Innovations, the state's quasi-public venture capital arm, and failing to indicate whether their programs were meeting intended goals." (https://www.hartfordbusiness.com/article/ct-economic-development-agency-audit-finds-errors-and-omissions-totaling-millions). Why are the problems that were reported in the past repeated in yearly audits? It is ostensible that the Department of Economic and Community Development has plain wasted Connecticut Taxpayers money. The current 30 years plus of omnipotent one-party rule of the Connecticut Democrat Party has helped to lead Connecticut into a never-ending economic ditch of high taxes, authoritarian rule, senseless laws that protect criminals and encourage crime along with outright fraud, lies, deception, and a disregard for the state Constitution. Buying jobs using Connecticut Taxpayer monies has not worked for over 30 years. Connecticut, with or without the Department of Economic and Community Development, is basically in the same economic shape it was over 30 years ago only now with an ever-increasing debt load and unchecked state employee fixed costs for benefits, pensions and salaries.
It is difficult to understand the purpose of the DECD. Is it just to pick politically connected winners and losers in the state's economy and throw money at Ned Lamont associated companies like Sema-4, Vestwell, Digital Currency Group, Boston Consulting Group, Mt. Sinai Genomics and/or McKinsey and others? Is it just to hand out minimal interest disappearing multi-million dollar “sweetheart” loans to cronies and the politically connected? I wonder how much money Connecticut Taxpayers have lost by investments made both in public and in secret by the Connecticut's DECD? $100 million, $500 million more? Less? Why isn't this information made public in a state as small as Connecticut that has over $150 billion dollars in short- and long-term debt along with unfunded liabilities? Why aren't the audit issues addressed? And if they can't be addressed then why isn't the DECD de-funded and abolished since it is not properly operating under accounting laws and rules of the state? Why does no known political figure whatsoever call for dissolving DECD? In my opinion DECD is just as corrupt as Governor Ned Lamont and should be shut down. But in a state as corrupt as Connecticut what's a few billion dollars’ worth of Connecticut Taxpayer's wasted? It is just politics as usual as we fast approach our new 1776.
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