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Letter: Fairfield's Hwang, Gambling Expert Blame Dems For GE Move

NORWALK, Conn. -- The Fairfield Daily Voice accepts signed letters to the editor. Send letters to fairfield@dailyvoice.com.

Tony Hwang

Tony Hwang

Photo Credit: Contributed photo

To the Editor:

Anyone interested in Connecticut’s future should be deeply concerned about the way Democratic legislative leaders handled the GE fiasco as opposed to their all-out effort to preserve Connecticut’s casino industry by expanding casino gambling in the state. 

Despite strong evidence to the contrary, House and Senate leaders did their best to deny that the state’s poor business climate, massive tax increases, yawning deficits and uncertain budgeting process influenced GE’s decision to move its headquarters to Boston. 

They did next to nothing to encourage the kind of full-court diplomatic and economic press Boston put on to snag the company, and in the end expressed a sense of fatalism that it was simply impossible to stop GE from leaving given its desire to be in a higher tech and urban environment.

The extent to which Connecticut’s political leadership lost touch with GE and didn’t put up a more vigorous fight to keep it represents a monumental failure. 

Contrast the legislative leadership’s response to the GE situation with the way it has rushed to help Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun defend themselves against mounting competition and the loss of casino revenue and jobs. 

Legislative leaders have met repeatedly with the casinos’ tribal owners to discuss their needs, ease regulation, and coordinate strategy, and are strongly supporting the tribes’ efforts to open a casino in the Hartford area to try to counter the MGM casino being built in Springfield. Also, the combined revenue for the state’s two casinos is down 40 percent from its peak. 

They’ve eliminated more than 8,000 casino jobs and have been replacing full-time jobs with part-time jobs to reduce wage costs and eliminate medical benefits, while Foxwoods is mired in debt. 

It’s time our state government began to get serious about making the changes necessary to attract and keep productive businesses and began to focus on better instruments for moving Connecticut forward. 

State Sen. Tony Hwang, R-28th District and Robert Steele, author of “The Curse: Big-Time Gambling’s Seduction of a small New England Town.” 

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