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January 2008 — Vol. 85, No. 11
Blueprint for a healthy Connecticut economy
CBIA issues 2008 Government Affairs Program
Connecticut’s future depends on a thriving, growing economy. People in Connecticut agree, with surveys showing they want the state’s economy to grow, employers to succeed and young people to have better opportunities for the future.
Addressing these top issues and providing a blueprint for economic growth are the aim of CBIA’s “2008 Government Affairs Program.” It contains practical solutions to the challenges facing the state and outlines what can be done to improve our economy.
Only a vibrant economy can provide the wealth of benefits that our people and communities need — from good jobs and wages to the opportunity for a better quality of life. A strong business climate also generates the revenue that enables state and local governments to provide critically needed social services.
But a healthy economy depends on whether employers, employees and their families feel confident that Connecticut is a place where they can succeed and grow. State government can help by promoting conditions that allow more jobs to be created.
Those conditions include:
- More-competitive business costs and lower taxes. Why? Because Connecticut currently has the fifth-highest business costs in the United States.
- A top-notch education system to produce a skilled workforce. Why? Because there aren’t enough skilled workers to fill open positions now, nor will there be in the future.
- A dependable transportation infrastructure. Why? Because our economy needs to be connected to the global marketplace.
State leaders should also reject proposals that weaken business confidence and discourage economic investment. Employers and their employees will expect policymakers to stay focused on pro-jobs, pro-economy initiatives.
Connecticut does have challenges. But the best way to solve them is to help our economy grow. A healthier business climate will enable employers to create more sustainable, quality jobs, provide greater financial security and improve the quality of life for more and more people.
Here are the priority recommendations in the “Government Affairs Program.”
(To read the entire document, visit cbia.com/gov.)
Competitive business costs
Control health care costs and expand access to quality care.
- Improve Connecticut’s market-based, employer-sponsored health care system and reject efforts to replace it with a taxpayer-funded, government-run system.
– Make greater use of technology, including electronic medical records, to reduce medical duplication and errors and enable consumers to make better-informed health care choices.
– Promote healthier lifestyles by encouraging employer-based wellness and disease-management programs. Target outreach to groups with higher incidences of chronic diseases such as diabetes.
– Reduce cost shifts from Medicaid to private-sector payers by raising the state’s reimbursement level for providers’ costs. Continue efforts to detect and prevent fraud in the system and ensure that proper payments are being made.
– Make lower-cost health insurance available to consumers by allowing health plan companies to create more-flexible health benefit designs and policies with fewer coverage mandates.
– Prevent any additional and costly health insurance mandates.
- Reject attempts to mandate expensive government-run health care purchasing pools that will drive up costs and taxes.
Use prudent fiscal policy to help drive economic development.
- Ensure that revisions to the second year of the biennial budget adhere to the constitutional spending cap.
- Control spending by making greater use of performance-based budgeting and best practices in state operations.
- Reverse the erosion of taxpayers’ privacy, administrative and judicial rights and remedies.
Reduce high energy costs and improve energy reliability.
- Facilitate the expansion of interstate and intrastate transmission lines and natural gas pipelines.
- Expand cost-effective energy conservation and demand-response programs.
Reject measures that discourage job creation in the state.
- Maintain employers’ flexibility to design operational and personnel workplace policies that best meet the needs of employers and employees alike.
- Oppose proposals that would drive up workers’ compensation or other costs.
Skilled workforce
Improve the overall academic performance of Connecticut students.
- Raise high-school academic standards and graduation requirements and give teachers and students the support and resources they need to succeed.
- Increase the availability of skilled manufacturing workers by upgrading the state’s technical high schools and community colleges, promoting manufacturing careers, and improving the skills of current employees.
- Help potential and current employees improve their skills and access to high-paying jobs through employer-driven training such as customized job-training programs and apprenticeships.
Transportation
Improve the Connecticut Department of Transportation’s (DOT’s) ability to plan and execute high-priority transportation improvements.
- Continue to focus resources on the highest-priority transportation challenges, including the I–95 corridor in southwestern Connecticut.
- Adopt the recommendations of the governor’s DOT commission that will improve the operations and efficiency of the department.
- Expand efforts to increase the impact of Bradley International Airport as an economic driver.
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