Malloy: Rell and Legislature Didn't Walk Tall; Now He Has To

In increasingly blunt talk about the state's fiscal crisis, Governor-elect Dan Malloy says his Republican predecessor, M. Jodi Rell, and the Democrat-controlled legislature clung to futile hopes for a quick economic recovery instead of making long-needed structural changes to Connecticut's operations and finances.

"They should've been done earlier. They should have been done by the governor," Malloy said in an interview with The Mirror in his transition office at the State Capitol. "They should have been done by the legislature. Now I have to do them."

Malloy offered a view of the state's multi-year fiscal crisis that is sharply at odds with his fellow Democrat, House Speaker Christopher G. Donovan of Meriden, who has largely blamed the crisis on the recession and resisted calls for sweeping changes.

In public speeches and private conversations, Malloy said he is making the case that legislators are wrong if they believe Connecticut can take stop-gap measures and then wait for a rebounding economy to erase a deficit of more $3.5 billion

"They had the hope that this recession would be like other recessions, that the recovery would be well under way right now," Malloy said. "Now, I never agreed with that. I never supported that."

READ MORE