Malloy Managing Expectations - Managing Deficit Next

Gov.-elect Dan Malloy has spent the better part of the last year trying to navigate between a political rock and a fiscal hard place.

On one side there's a general public wary of the next major state tax hike, state employee unions still smarting from 2009 concessions, and a host of other special interests fearful of more spending cuts.

And on the other is what effectively amounts to the largest budget deficit in state history.

As a candidate, Malloy tried to preserve his options to make painful budget choices without unnecessarily reminding voters about them. Now, with his administration set to begin Wednesday, Malloy is working to prepare people for what's going to emerge from that tight spot.

"I've spent a lot of time preparing people for how desperately bad things are," the governor-elect told Capitol reporters last week, fielding questions after announcing one of his administration's new commissioners. "The state's in terrible, terrible, terrible trouble."

That's not to say Malloy was hesitant to discuss Connecticut's troubled finances while he was a candidate. He frequently referred to the budget he will inherit from Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell and the Democrat-controlled legislature as a "bipartisan, fiscal train wreck."

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