I Have A New Favorite Governor....

With my home-state's Governor, Ed Rendell, out of office, and nothing of worth straight across the river in New Jersey, I've been searching for a new favorite Governor, and I think I've found him.

HARTFORD — There is Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey: blustery and bellicose, hectoring the unions, enthralling fellow Republicans with his tax caps and spending cuts, already generating presidential murmurings after barely a year in office.

And then, up the road in Connecticut, there is a new governor trying to be everything Mr. Christie is not.

Mr. Christie criticizes unions and forces wrenching spending cuts at the local level. Connecticut’s new governor, Dannel P. Malloy, politely asks labor leaders for givebacks and wants to raise taxes on income and sales by $1.5 billion.

Mr. Malloy grew up with dyslexia and physical disabilities. He still cannot write or type. And as he closes a 20 percent budget deficit, he spends much of his energy finding ways to spare the most vulnerable.

But what is most striking about Mr. Malloy, a Democrat, is that just six weeks after taking charge of such a mild-mannered state, he is publicly taking shots at his celebrated counterpart in New Jersey, attacking his politics and policies, his intellect, even his personality.

“Being bombastic for the sake of being bombastic,” Mr. Malloy said, “has just never been my take on the world.”

Yes! Finally someone willing to say it! "Bob's Big Boy," both for his claims of being an adult, and his large size, in New Jersey, is not running that state well. Time will prove that out more. More on Governor Malloy though.

As governor, Mr. Malloy laid down ground rules. He said spending, which was on a course to grow by $1.8 billion, would remain flat. He said he would not borrow to cover operating expenses, as the state previously did. He promised to pay the state’s pension obligations fully and to make costly catch-up payments for years they were skipped. He ruled out early retirement plans, saying they really did not save anything and only stretched the pension system thinner. And he imposed strict accounting standards to bring more transparency to the state’s balance sheet.

The strategy was simple: demonstrate a willingness to make tough cuts first; then demand sacrifice from labor; and only then ask the public to go along with tax increases.

That, of course, puts him in direct opposition with Governors Christie and Cuomo, who say their citizens are already overtaxed.

But Mr. Malloy does not apologize for proposing tax increases.

“It’s what’s right for my state,” he said. “Connecticut would not be Connecticut if we cut $3.5 billion out of the budget. We are a strong, generous, hopeful people. We’d be taking $800 million out of education. You can’t do that in this state. You’d have to gouge the Medicaid system. You’d have to close 25 percent of the nursing homes. What do you do with people?”

Wow! A Governor willing to stand by his values! In a state that, despite it's "Blue" status in Presidential Elections, never really elects Democratic Governors. More yet.

“I’m not sure that some governors just don’t want to lay off people for the sake of laying off people and being able to say they did,” he said, speaking of those who may have their sights on seeking national office, say in 2016. “I think there’s a certain collection of merit badges that’s going on here.”

Mr. Malloy also spoke critically of the property-tax caps and the cuts in local aid enacted in New Jersey and proposed in New York, comparing them to Proposition 13, the law now widely blamed for crippling California’s public education system.

“If you look at suburban education in New Jersey and New York, it’s pretty strong, intact, doing a pretty good job,” he said. “You cap taxes for those communities, can we reasonably predict it’s going to be as strong 20 years from now?”

Mr. Malloy first went at Mr. Christie publicly a few weeks ago, after hearing that the New Jersey governor had openly discussed the possibility of letting states seek bankruptcy protection to break contracts with unions. “Insanity,” Mr. Malloy called the idea in an interview, saying it could undermine the municipal bond market. “It’s a political statement, and it’s a very dangerous one in my opinion.”

A Governor who understands policy, c'mon now! Governor Malloy, my current favorite Governor in America!