Nutmeggers: Don’t move here

After winning last November’s election with 45 percent of the vote and enjoying widespread post-election popularity, Gov. Dan Malloy’s numbers have dipped, according to a couple of opinion polls released this week. The news is not surprising, but what may be more alarming is an overall sense of pessimism in Connecticut, where residents don’t seem to care about each other, or people from any other state, for that matter.In a June 9 poll conducted by Pulse Opinion Research for the conservative-leaning Yankee Institute for Public Policy, a whopping 65 percent of respondents said they would not recommend Connecticut as a place for a young family to move for a job or to start a new business. Even with the margin of error, that’s a horrifying commentary on Connecticut’s self-image. Sure, it’s hard to find a job or start a new business here, but it’s hard to do that anywhere. Is this state really that bad?As usual, voters complained that they would rather not rely on taxes to deal with the state’s budget shortfall, with 57 percent of residents saying Malloy’s budget spends too much and raises taxes too much. Big surprise.Again, though, more disheartening figures reveal a widespread crassness among citizens. At least 50 percent of state residents said they would favor laying off as many as 4,700 of their friends and neighbors who are state employees if concessions were not reached.So, not only do Connecticut residents not want people to move here — they apparently want a significant number of people to lose their jobs and move away. Could this suggest an underlying desire to grow old here and die alone?In a Quinnipiac University Poll released Wednesday morning, it was announced that 43 percent of Connecticut residents are “dissatisfied” with the new state budget, while 16 percent of residents are “angry.” It’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to move to a state where two-thirds of the people are either angry or dissatisfied. Maybe Connecticut residents are simply protecting would-be Nutmeggers from themselves by keeping them out of the state.Thankfully, two-thirds of Connecticut residents said they were happy to see the state decriminalize of small amounts of marijuana. This can only stand to soften the short-term memory of citizens as they hope to see brighter days ahead.