Democratic gubernatorial contenders Ned Lamont and Dannel Malloy have both called for drastically improving state government, but they both pledged Tuesday night to avoid raising taxes or reinstalling tolls on the state's highways to pay for those improvements.
In their first televised debate since last month's Democratic Party convention, the candidates agreed on a wide variety of issues, including their opposition to the death penalty.
Both candidates said they are strong believers in local control of education and do not favor any type of state takeover of the public schools. They both opposed school vouchers that would allow children from low-income families to obtain scholarships to attend private schools.
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In one hour on live television on WVIT, the candidates battled back and forth on the issues and both expressed skepticism on hiking taxes. They opposed the state's $250 business entity tax that small and larger businesses currently pay, depending on how the company is legally structured.
"I don't think the politicians have earned the right to raise people's taxes,'' Lamont said in the local NBC affiliate station's West Hartford studio. "But first and foremost, we have to give the taxpayers' some confidence that their money is being well spent.''
Lamont said he would bring his business experience to the governor's office, using what he learned 25 years ago when he borrowed money and started Lamont Television Systems that later became known as Lamont Digital.
"We took on the cable TV industry,'' Lamont said. "That's how Connecticut wins again. ... That's what I've done my whole life. I've been a job creator.''
Lamont said he would find savings in the big money pots of health care, computers, and the state Department of Motor Vehicles. He recalled a conversation with a voter who went to the DMV and later told Lamont: "I walked in there a Democrat and came out a Tea Party-er.''
Malloy repeatedly touted his 14-year record as Stamford's mayor, which ended last year after he decided not to seek re-election. During his time in the mayor's office, Malloy said the city side of government became 8.4 percent smaller when he finished than when he started.
"That's a record probably no one else in the country could claim to have,'' Malloy said of his tenure.
Malloy said his biggest difference with Lamont is that he has essentially done the job of being a chief executive of a mid-size city. He said those experiences translate to being a governor, who handles a far larger bureaucracy with more than 50,000 state employees and an annual budget of $19 billion.
Regarding raising taxes, Malloy said, "That should be a last resort. ... We've lost more manufacturing jobs than any other state in New England or the mid-Atlantic.''
Only 14 minutes into the debate, the Lamont campaign countered quickly with a response to Malloy's comment about making government smaller in Stamford. Overall, the total number of city employees in Stamford increase by 9.1 percent during Malloy's tenure, Lamont's campaign said. The campaign cited Stamford's annual financial reports that said the city had 3,021 employees in the year that Malloy started and 3,296 in his final year.
But Malloy's campaign said Lamont's citation includes all school board employees - over which Malloy had no control. For the employees under Malloy's direct control, the number went down by 107 employees or 8.4 percent, said Roy Occhiogrosso, the campaign's political strategist
Standing side by side at separate lecterns in the television studio, the candidates went back and forth on issues that ranged from immigration to alcohol sales. They both said they would favor ending the long-running state law that now prevents the sale of liquor on Sundays. Currently, package stores are closed, and supermarkets are not permitted to sell beer on Sunday. That issue has been a long-running controversy at the state Capitol, where the state's package store owners have consistently won the battle by saying that opening the doors on Sunday would simply spread liquor sales over seven days instead of six.
They both also opposed the U.S. Supreme Court's 5 - 4 decision this year to allow more spending by corporations in political campaigns.
They both focused on reducing state spending and kick-starting a sluggish economy that has lead to a rising unemployment rate since the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers investment banking firm prompted a huge downturn on Wall Street in September 2008. Lately, the state has been slowly recovering, and Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell - who is not seeking reelection - announced Tuesday that the projected state surplus had increased to about $243 million because of an uptick in tax collections.
The two combatants have started to broadcast television commercials as they head toward the August 10 Democratic primary. During a break in the debate at about 7:30 p.m., both candidates broadcast commercials before the one-hour debate resumed.
Malloy won the party's convention endorsement by more than a 2 to 1 margin. Lamont, however, has been leading in two, post-convention polls by Quinnipiac University by 17 percentage points in each poll.