Courant Guide

Courant Guide

Name: John P. Kilian

Office Being Sought and District: 20th Assembly District

Party: Connecticut For Lieberman

Family: Yes

Education: Yes

Civic Involvement: No

Past Political Office: President of Wolcott Elementary Student Council



TOP THREE ISSUES (in order of priority, each response should not exceed 200 words)

Issue 1: Our government's role is to enable our citizens to realize opportunities by bringing out the best we have to offer. To too much of a degree, our government today is mired in the role of providing for people's welfare with a series of very large band aids that in the long term can not be sustained. Our state legislature is especially adept at taking out large loans to provide generous benefits without consideration for how the bills are going to be paid down the line. A political empire has been fashioned that lures people into dependency on the state, instead of leading people to follow a path that, in the short term may be more strenuous, but in the long term is the way to go.



We need to find a consensus on what government is supposed to do for people, and what people are supposed to do for themselves. There is a widening gap between people like me, whose families pay for government services that we have never used, and other families who use services they never pay for. That is an underlying source of a lot of the friction that is undermining cohesiveness in our community.



Issue 2: Some of our state's largesse is counterproductive, as well as expensive. Our culture is being transformed by the increased prevalence of single parents whose partner in raising their children is a government check instead of a committed and contributing spouse. If there were only two things I could convince my children to buy into, it would be for them to wait until they have a decent education before getting married, and to wait until they get married to have children. It is difficult to stand idly by while so many children in our state casually, even purposely, decide as minors to have children out of wedlock. The state comes to the rescue of these individuals in the form of government aid, but who benefits when it becomes common place that mothers and fathers have no intention of marrying the person with whom they have children? Minors should not be receiving direct aid for having children. Paying children to get pregnant is a very bad policy, and no one is hurt more in the long run than the mothers and their children who fall into this trap set with the allure of a short-cut to adulthood.



Issue 3: Our economy is suffering from a lack of willingness on the part of private capital to invest in our state. Government spending to bridge a recession is not a bad short term solution, but it is not a long term solution. What government needs to do is encourage the private money sitting on the sidelines to get in the game.

I think the economy could be better if the government phased in significant energy taxes and that would create a market for private industry to solve the problem of needing to be more energy efficient. Changes to the income tax could compensate for the regressive nature of consumption taxes. Also, government investment in mass transit solutions will spawn economic activity around stations while easing the blow of energy costs that will rise whether or not the government raises taxes.

Without a phased in, deliberately executed plan to wean us off foreign oil, we are prone to be stuck driving to work, paying whatever the world market will bear, and every dollar spent on imports will be unavailable to provide the incentives and infrastructure to cushion the blow.

Sincerely,

John Kilian