Kevin Rennie: Yes, a Connecticut leader can get the big things right about things so wrong

Hartford Courant – Saturday, February 7, 2026
By Kevin Rennie

This winter marks 20 years of Ned Lamont transforming himself into a statewide political figure.

In 2006, Lamont was an insurgent Democrat challenging re-election of a Democrat at the heart of the political establishment, the late U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman. Today, Lamont operates cheerfully as the dominant figure in state politics and government.

On Wednesday, Lamont delivered his eighth state budget address, and it is unlikely to be his last.

I’ve been watching and writing about the governor over four statewide campaigns and as he begins a fifth. His address to the General Assembly Wednesday was notable for two reasons, one small and one enormous. Lamont has never stood out as a memorable speaker. Even when he has a text of a speech, which is not often, the Greenwich Democrat likes a diversion that can become a ramble through words not in his text. He was crisp and disciplined on Wednesday and it showed.

The content of his address was a reminder of the transformation of the state’s finances during Lamont’s seven years as governor. The foundation for change began in 2017 when a bipartisan coalition led by former state Sen. Len Fasano, R-North Haven, proposed, negotiated and adopted reforms of the state budget practices. Many of the last 50 years in state government were most notable for the paralyzing search to find the money to fund the budget. Residents of the state expect a lot of services but often do not want to pay what they cost.

In 2017, exhausted by the annual shortfalls, an evenly divided Senate, reality and a long-term rescue plan prevailed at last. The fiscal guardrails, as they became known, have restored the state’s finances. Lamont pointed out that the state has paid off $10 billion in debt. There is much more to go but the trend is in the right direction. There are powerful voices in and around state government who look at Connecticut and see only unmet needs. For them, the government can never spend enough or raises taxes too high. Lamont, in his affable way, has faced down those forces from within his own party.

Lamont has so far skillfully navigated the erratic, unilateral and sometimes vengeful policy pronouncements from Washington. He sounded Wednesday as if understands the perils ahead and is prepared to do what he can to blunt their impact.

The budget adjustments he proposed will add hundreds of millions of dollars more to the child daycare fund that he established last year. There is a tax cut for some. It is generally a sensible budget but there are some proposals that seem aimed solely at thwarting a challenge from Lamont’s left in winning the Democratic nomination for governor.

Universal free school breakfast sounds appealing until you remember that Connecticut is home to some of the most affluent communities in the world. It makes no sense that some of the taxes paid by the single parent raising three children are sent to one of those wealthy towns so Biff, Chadsworth, Bitsy and Sloane can eat breakfast for free. There is a place for need in government funded programs, but Lamont left it out.

A proposal that may damage the state’s finances for decades received Lamont’s enthusiastic endorsement. The Connecticut Option is an expansion of state health insurance and a ploy to push patients to the three private hospitals Lamont decided last year needed the state to rescue. One, Waterbury Hospital, was in bankruptcy. The other two, Bristol and Day Kimball, have long had precarious finances. So has the University of Connecticut hospital. They will now be soldered together to form a financially rickety public hospital system.

The plan appears to be to push state employees, retirees and others from the stable hospitals they now use to the ones the state bailed out. The natural result will be to harm the hospitals that have been proper stewards of their finances. This is destined to bring serious trouble to healthcare in Connecticut. Lamont told legislators, “Don’t let the lobbyists scare you.” That sounded like an uncharacteristic call to ignore facts that conflict with his plan.

Connecticut has one of the lowest Medicaid reimbursement rates in the nation. for medical services provided to the more than one million residents enrolled in the program for low-income residents. That will continue to strain the cost and availability of health care in the state for the other two million. With none of the traditional financial reserves the state requires of private insurers but not of itself, Lamont is putting at risk the finances he has improved so significantly.

The governor declined in his speech to remind legislators that they have made a made a mess with their unrestrained habit of earmarking millions of dollars each year for organizations favored by their colleagues. A recent audit of the Blue Hills Civic Association revealed that millions in earmarks had been misspent in the past few years. The money has caught the attention of federal criminal investigators and could become a headache for candidate Lamont. He should have acknowledged it and set forth his plan for reform in his remarks.

One of Lamont’s unacknowledged strengths is his public composure and innate courtesy in an era when escalating vulgarity in politics shows an ugly American face to us and the world. With a firehouse of insults flowing from Washington, the value of dignity rises with people of goodwill, while attracting the disdain of a diminishing mob.

Early Friday morning, the president of the United States shared on his social media account a foul video that portrayed former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama as apes and himself as a lion. It was rank racism. Ned Lamont, who is prudent about entering the social media sewer responded. “The Obamas served our country with integrity and broke barriers that opened doors for all.”

The video, he continued, tried “to erase that progress, spreading harmful stereotypes that drive discrimination and violence. Connecticut stands firmly against racism and for dignity and respect.”

This week, Ned Lamont reminded us he usually gets the big things right.

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