{"id":266581,"date":"2010-02-02T16:39:32","date_gmt":"2010-02-02T21:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogs.courant.com,2010:\/capitol_watch\/\/9.70951"},"modified":"2010-02-02T16:40:09","modified_gmt":"2010-02-02T21:40:09","slug":"democrats-want-to-improve-the-economy-and-create-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/266581","title":{"rendered":"Democrats Want to Improve The Economy And Create Jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"

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HARTFORD — If Connecticut wants to create more jobs and improve the economy, Democratic lawmakers say the state needs to focus on innovation and entrepreneurship, decide what investments to make and educate a work force for in-demand jobs.<\/p>\n

Since October, Democrats have discussed job growth with academics, economists and labor and business leaders. The group released its recommendations Tuesday, and lawmakers said the ideas will be drafted into bills that will be considered during this year’s legislative session.<\/p>\n

“We need to make Connecticut competitive again,” said House Majority Leader Denise Merrill, D-Mansfield.<\/p>\n

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The majority leaders’ job growth round table says the state should focus on improving its transportation, water and energy infrastructures, while making Connecticut more business friendly. <\/p>\n

It recommends that the state bond about $12 million to support all stages of business growth and use $75 million of state pension money to support growing companies that currently leave Connecticut. Other money to support business retention would come from qualified private equity funds.<\/p>\n

In addition, the group says to create a tax credit program that would leverage private investment by creating a network that would support start-up companies, and it wants Connecticut to renew support of industry clusters, such as manufacturing and financial services. <\/p>\n

It also encourages the state to redirect existing tax credits to invest in clean technologies and energy innovation, and it wants to provide incentives to increase energy efficiency and the manufacturing of green energy products — suggestions that please groups like the Connecticut Fund for the Environment. <\/p>\n

Emphasizing science, technology, engineering and math in school is another idea, the group says, adding that Connecticut should consider a program like Michigan’s No Worker Left Behind. In Michigan, unemployed workers are given free tuition to community colleges if they are pursuing high-demand jobs. <\/p>\n

Sen. Gary LeBeau, D-East Hartford, stressed that the report released Tuesday is not a political document, but rather a document for the future. <\/p>\n

No Republicans, however, were part of the job growth group — a fact that disappointed Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, R-Southport. <\/p>\n

The Democratic majority passed a budget without the support of Republicans last year and now they are looking to tackle the job growth issue without Republican input, McKinney said, noting that Republicans have proposed many of the group’s suggestions in the past.<\/p>\n

McKinney said he is willing to work with Democrats on the matter because he supports many of the recommendations, but he said he hopes Democrats recognize the need for repealing measures, such as the corporate tax code, that hurt businesses, and he said he wants the state’s budget deficit addressed. <\/p>\n

Connecticut is currently facing a projected $500 million deficit for this fiscal year. <\/p>\n

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HARTFORD — If Connecticut wants to create more jobs and improve the economy, Democratic lawmakers say the state needs to focus on innovation and entrepreneurship, decide what investments to make and educate a work force for in-demand jobs. Since October, Democrats have discussed job growth with academics, economists and labor and business leaders. The group […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}