Enhancing prosperity and keeping citizen safety are the two missions of the state.  The means to both is more FREEDOM.    The prosperity aspect is manifest to all (though some Marxists and most Nihilists don't want to adhere): the freedom of people to labor as they wish, save as they wish, care for themselves as they wish, and shop as they wish enhances prosperity.

 

The freedom of families to educate their children as they wish PROBABLY leads to high prosperity.  Since this is a less-solid claim, a state should give OPTIONS for people to educate their children under rigid state-run systems or under private auspices.  By CT law education is required to be public.

 

Safety, the other mission of a state, has a sliding scale with freedom.  We are all less likely to be killed if we make the speed limit 15 miles per hour; our children are less likely to be hurt is there is no electricity allowed to run into our households.  I err on the side of freedom to drive 60 mph and have electric ovens because individuals can make decisions that keep themselves safe AND others safe better than blunt regulations can.  I err on the side of private prudence because the power of government compulsion is so strong.  Law, remember, is force; it is ultimately the use of authorities with guns to compel citizens.  

 

Finally, private prudence deserves the upper hand because the costs of enforcing government control, and the intrusiveness, are too high.   If you choose to drive 25 in a 15 mph zone, we need more surveillance and more patrolmen to enforce this; if you choose to get solar power into your home to defeat some prohibition on electric ovens, some detective needs to monitor your home too.  

 

There are two requirements in the Connecticut Constitution, both recent additions, that cost substantial money: free elementary and secondary education, and a state university system. A governor is bound to respect these expenditures.  Besides these, the mantra is DON'T SPEND.  

 

The rare exceptions should be on necessary functions that privately cannot be done better.  I put some environmental protection, and some transportation projects in this category.  The General Assembly might determine others, but this governor will always weigh in, with veto power, for every common welfare expense to be done privately. In the process:

 

Don't tax, don't borrow, don't restrict.  If a governor is speeding other people's money, it is to be done fairly and FRUGALLY.  Let Connecticut be a model for state frugality, but with it burgeoning private wealth.  How private distributes wealth is not the state's business (though it very likely will be distributed to needy people BETTER than the state can ever do.   And that wealth will certainly be greater than with the impositions by the state government that we have become accustomed.  

 

It is time to roll back these impositions, and see the private wealth, private charity, and private activities flourish.