SteadyHabitsNedLamont.mp3

SteadyHabitsNedLamont.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

SteadyHabitsNedLamont.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Yeah, Connecticut had one of the lowest infection rates in the country up until five weeks ago, and things have been kicking up in Connecticut throughout our region and sadly throughout our country. And it wasn't totally unexpected. We knew from 1918. We knew from all the models that come the flu season. Come October, November, December, we are expected to take up our university's plan to close down at Thanksgiving and not come back until the end of January, February. But but here we are. And this is going to be a pretty tough month. As you point out, we had university kids coming and going that, you know, stir things up. Now we've got Thanksgiving. So I think we're going to watch carefully over the next two plus weeks to see where the trend lines are. And that will be determinative. At least the good news is a week from Monday, we get our first twenty thousand vaccines from Pfizer, really focused on our first responders, nurses and docs. And hopefully that's the beginning of a turn.

You want to get back to those vaccines and how they'll be distributed and how the additional vaccines as they as they finally get to us will be distributed. But but when you're looking at these numbers, especially with the holidays coming up, the Christmas holidays just coming out of Thanksgiving, what is it you're looking at? Are you looking at the infection rate or are you looking at the number of infections, the hospitalizations? What are the the key indicators that you and your team are looking at every day to make the determinations you're making?

Well, the most important thing is I think the capacity in our hospitals and I met with a lot of the docs via Zoome yesterday, they're getting stressed, there's no question about it. And last time around, two things were different in the spring when we got hit pretty hard. One, it was hit in just a part of the state, you know, the southern part of the state. So we could bring in the cavalry and reinforcements and nurses and be from the northern part of the state. And then the tables turned a little while later. Not this time. This time, the covid spread is hitting every hospital in every region, pretty much at the same time. And last time the hospitals were able to not able a lot of people to put off elective surgery. Sometimes important surgeries said let's not do it. Now, that opened up a lot of capacity. Our hospitals this time around, six months later, they're still catching up on a lot of that deferred elective surgeries. So we have to watch this carefully. There's some stress in the health care system.

You talked with a group of doctors and a large contingent of doctors and sent you a letter saying essentially that in order to flatten the curve, to make sure that we don't overwhelm excuse, we need to think about closing down gyms and closing down indoor dining. What did you tell them?

I told him, I want to I want to do things that make a real difference. I told them that. You know, for a reaction, there is a reaction that, you know, I don't government by fiat, you've got to convince people to do the right thing.

It's those informal social interactions, which is where most of the spread overwhelmingly, most of the spread is taking place if you just closed down the restaurants. Does that mean everybody goes home and sits with a TV dinner on their lap by themselves, or do they have a party or dinner somewhere else? Do they drive to New York or Massachusetts to grab a steak and a glass of wine? So you got to think about what the ramifications are. Will it make a difference? That said, look, I look at Europe at one point they had to close everything down for a period of time.

Yeah. And we came pretty close to that earlier this year. We were relatively closed down when a group of medical professionals comes to you and says these are the places that we see the biggest problems, the biggest possibilities, gyms, indoor dining, some of the things that you've said that you want to keep open. It does sound as though they've got some pretty good data that suggests that those are the problem points.

I think intuitively you would say, look, I think dining at a restaurant, you have to take off the mask to eat. That seems risky. You know, that said, with our track and trace programs will follow this carefully. The restaurant guys have put up plastic glass. They've been very serious about doing this in an appropriate way, trying to steer people outside as much as they can. I get it is December is not as easy as it was. You know, the gym's a it's really important. The mental health. I hear that everywhere I go. But also there are twenty five percent capacity. You've got to wear a mask. If you the question is, can you operate if you operate cautiously, can you do it safely?

Where do you see most of the infections coming from? You talked about social interactions, but those are incredibly hard to trace, you know, interactions between family members, maybe between casual acquaintances. How do you track that and how do you know that that's where most of the infections are coming from right now in the state?

Our track and trace talk in the Massachusetts, there's doing the same thing, Cuomo Dam in New York, where they see things going on. It's not playing hockey, it's the carpool to the rink. It's in the locker room. It's probably not necessarily in the church, but it's outside the church. When you let your guard down and you hug a good friend of a friend and assume that since they're they know each other, it must be OK. It's not necessarily even in that restaurant or that gym, more likely that informal social gathering or a couple of friends come in and they know somebody else and you let your guard down. I think that's where we're finding the greatest risk. So really, it's personal behavior that makes the biggest difference in terms of turning turning the corner.

Of course, a lot of the questions that you've gotten are from those very unhappy hockey moms and dads and in kids who want to play winter sports. And I've seen what you've told them. But again, if if playing hockey isn't necessarily the problem, can you get more kids playing athletics or are we going to continue to to limit winter sports into spring sports?

Now, we've said we wanted to put off the start of winter sports till January 19th, why January 19th? I think our schools are coming back at that point. I think we'll have more vaccines out there. At that point. I think we can do it safely. But what we found was, look, I'm doing everything I can to keep the schools open. Connecticut is more likely to have its schools open full time than just about any state in the Northeast. And we found there was some risk you could pick it up in basketball or some other sports. Then you bring it into your 7th grade class. Then we find out there's an infection. Then a teacher has to quarantine for two weeks and pretty soon the school is closed. And I will tell you that a kid named Max, who was 10 years old, he sent me an orange hockey puck and he said, you got to let me play. I really need it. And I sent him a video and tweet the other day, and I got dozens of orange hockey pucks today. Just the kids. I know what you're going through. I know how hard this is. I hope your parents explained we're doing this so that you will be able to play hockey, will be able to be in school.

And I want to get back to education in just a little bit. But you mentioned the vaccines that you're going to be getting the first wave of these vaccines coming about twenty thousand at first, maybe forty thousand doses in total, if you get them from both of these companies that are developing the vaccines by the end of this year. All right. That seems like a pretty big number. But given the number of health care professionals, given the number of people at risk, it's very, very small. How do you prioritize who gets them first?

The CDC has sent out some guidelines and Deirdre Gifford, our public health commissioner, and our Regini runs Triniti, they put together a group. It sounds to me like they're going to come to the conclusion. We're going to make this at our press briefing tomorrow that health care professionals, doctors and nurses, front line, we've got to have you on the battlefield. Secondly, elderly, frail, elderly and those in nursing homes. You a those are the ones most likely to suffer complications and fatalities. So the main thing to do, they're also the ones most likely to go to a hospital. So if you worry about capacity in hospitals, taking care of your seniors is the right thing to do and also keep your hospitals more open.

So taking care of people who work in nursing homes as well as nursing home residents. That's right. And taking care of all sorts of doctors and other professionals who are working in hospitals. But that cuts into just a very small number. I've seen numbers like 250 or 270000 health care professionals in the entire state. So you would be starting by giving maybe half of those doses to public health professionals, maybe half to seniors. And that still leaves an awful lot of public health professionals who are seeing the public right now who are unvaccinated for some time.

I think we are going to see one hundred million doses coming our way over the next six plus months, I think they're ramping this up. You mentioned, you know, Madonna and Pfizer coming out of the box pretty fast. AstraZeneca coming up soon thereafter. I'd like to think that we will be ramping up that capacity and have general opportunity for people to be vaccinated this spring.

Is there anything else that you're planning to do to help alleviate the problem in nursing homes specifically? There's vaccines, certainly, but is there any other plan to try to make nursing homes safer? Right now.

Well, again, we've set up the code, but only nursing home for folks are coming back and recovering. Sadly, we're limiting visitations again. I know that was just heartbreaking for families, but as you can imagine, those folks coming in and out of the nursing home that tend to often carry the virus with them, testing on a weekly basis, testing the nurses in particular, because sometimes they would work in multiple nursing homes. And you can imagine that's a chain reaction.

Governor, as we talk about these vaccines, not just in this next month or so, but down the line, how do you plan to get them to people? A lot of questions that have come to me are really just of confusion. You know, how will I actually get a vaccine? And some of that stems from people who've tried pretty hard to get tested in the state. Some people have found ways to get tested multiple times for covid. Some people had to wait in very, very long lines and have run into any number of different problems. And it makes many people in the state feel like it's going to be real chaos when everyone's looking for a vaccine and it's going to be hard to figure out how to get one. So what's the plan for getting vaccines distributed once we start to ramp up the number that comes to the state?

All right, so we got a Walgreen and CBS, we got a contract with them or dropped shipping the vaccines to the nursing homes, they will take the lead there. They'll be responsible for refrigeration when it comes to the hospitals, probably a little bit easier. That's what they do. They do vaccines at hospitals. They've got the refrigeration. You know, they will manage that. So this first triage for the next 20, 30 days, I think you see how that rolling out. And then from there, John, we're working with all the pharmacies for doing everything you can to make it easy to get vaccinated. No cost to get vaccinated. The feds kindly are preventing that presenting, getting us the vaccine at no cost, getting the refrigeration, everything to us, maybe some administrative work in order to get that shot. We're looking for volunteers, folks that are going to help us when it comes to the vaccinations. It's called Step Up Connecticut. We pay a little bit and we need you to help administer so that. And John Dankosky gets a Madama Test on a January 7th. We know it's three weeks later. We know it's Moderna and we know when it's time for him to get vaccinated a second time. We've got to work hard to make sure that process works just so that everyone understands.

Each state really has to come up with this plan on their own. Right? I mean, there's no federal government oversight that says here's how you're going to distribute vaccines. This is the Connecticut plan. I don't know. The Rhode Island plans can be different. Right? The Massachusetts plan will be different.

Yeah, they're getting better. They were a little haphazard for the first six months coming out of Washington. And we're going to get pretty clear guidance from CDC. I explained to you how they're sort of prioritizing. You're absolutely right, John. It's up to us to say we want to follow your guidance or not. My instinct is what we follow the guidance. It seems pretty responsible. So far.

A number of people have wanted me to ask you about teachers getting the vaccine. If we want to keep schools open, at least partially open, should teachers be in the first wave of people who get vaccinated?

They should be in a very early way what they are first responders like like cops and firemen and food service workers, all those folks who are constantly interfacing with the public, they and not like us. We just can't zoom from a distance. They're there right there on the front lines. So we're making sure that they'll get priority in terms of those vaccinations.

Advocates for the incarcerated have said that that group of people and the people who work with them in facilities around the state are probably the most at risk because of the tight conditions, because of the the very easy spread of the disease. Will you make it a priority to get vaccinations to people who work within incarceration facilities and the incarcerated?

Yeah, I think so. I can't make everybody a priority that nobody's a priority. But you're right, that's a kongregate setting in congregate settings. It can be a wildfire there. I will say, for the incarcerated. They had one of the lowest infection rates, you know, in the country for most of the summer. So I felt really good about that. We did densify, as they say, some of those that were lowest risk. We were able to get them out of there. So there's some extra capacity, but it is ticking up again with those facilities just like it is around the state.

Yeah, and obviously, if everyone's a priority, nobody's a priority. But there have been a number of studies that look at the the different impacts you'd have depending on how you would distribute a vaccine. For instance, if you go in very early and say we want to get all the oldest in the frailest vaccinated, that probably will save the most lives. But it might not necessarily slow the rate of infection the most quickly. Other states, other countries around the world may look at it differently and say all the first responders should get it and then we can start to worry about getting people at different age classifications. The thing about incarcerated people is there's no place else really to to go and it can spread like wildfire. I guess I just wonder about that because it is a it is a really at risk group.

It's a really at risk group, but again, with disinfecting and mass and separation, we've done a pretty good job there, you know, in my mind. But let's wait to hear what Deirdre and Reg say. But my instinct is right now, I'm focused on the hospitals. Make sure we have enough capacity beds, nurses, docs to take care of people in need. That means I get them vaccinated. I get those elderly folks who are most likely at risk and to go to the hospital. I think that's going to be our priority for the first probably 30 days.

You talked about some of the businesses that have been impacted, especially restaurants. We've heard numbers of 600 or more restaurants in the state that are are closing for good. They've had to probably adapt what they do more than just about any other business. What can you tell restaurant owners right now moving forward as they go into a season where there's no more outdoor dining? There's hardly any chance for them to be able to come close to making the dollars that they've made in previous years. How do you help the restaurants in the state?

What about keeping them open? Everybody is lined up, you know, restaurants, hospitals, bars, event planners, hotels, everybody is looking for a bailout, a grant, some help. And, you know, to tell you the truth, they should get it. But the state of Connecticut can't do it. If I bail out everybody who bails out the state of Connecticut. And I do look at Europe, though, for example, they closed down their restaurants and the federal government there said, and we're going to pay you, I think it was seventy five percent of your revenues for the next three months until you open up again. So they made it possible for them to make that decision. We're not there, but it's not totally financial either. I think we can operate these things safely. I think restaurants are making an extra effort to be able to do that. And my advice to you is support your favorite restaurant. You don't necessarily have to go there for dinner, get set and pick up and bring it home. That would be a great thing for a local merchant.

You recently increased the possible fines for businesses that break pandemic protocols to ten thousand dollars, which is probably just aimed at some very egregious actors. But it's been seen by a lot of people as is fairly punitive. Why that particular number?

Because I talked to a lot of the mayors and public health at the local level, they're the folks enforcing this and they said a couple of things. Look for the smaller businesses. We know they're part of our Chamber of Commerce. We go there and say, Bob, this is crowded. Or, Mary, there's too many people not wearing a mask. If they disregard us, maybe we give them a small fine of hundred bucks on the mask. But if it's one of those big box retailers, we don't know them as well. Maybe our public health officials have warned them a couple of times. All right. Maybe they deserve a ten thousand dollar fine if they're disregarding the rules.

You know, I just got one question coming in from Ellen here. It says she's a physician. She's cared for covid patients. We put our lives on the line going into work. Why haven't you closed down non-essential businesses and indoor dining? You are simply wrong. That spread isn't happening in restaurants. And obviously, I understand that you're you're not saying that there's not spread happening in restaurants, but this really is the tension here. You want to keep businesses open because it might be the only way that they can stay open long term.

But as long as nonessential businesses are staying open, there is going to be some spread and it's going to put pressure on the medical community. And there's an awful lot of people who say, you know, my kid can't go to school, but you can still dine in a restaurant. That's got to be really the central tension you're dealing with right now, isn't it, Governor?

Yeah. I mean, the Foushee said closed the bars and open the schools and we've got some place and have done just the opposite. Look, I'm doing everything I can to keep our schools open. There's no question about it. I want to keep. I'd like to keep the heart of our economy going as long as we can do it safely. I'll be blunt. I'm talking to Cuomo, I'm talking to Baker, I'm talking to our regional governors because, look, if I shut down restaurants, everybody else says, let the show go on. It has a lot less impact and meaning. So if we do something, we'd probably do it together. But that's not happening right now.

What would trigger that if you've been talking about it? Is there some trigger that says now is the time for these states in this region to get together and actually say we're going to shut things down as a group?

Yeah, again, I think once you find that things are getting overwhelmed, the hospitals are overwhelmed that we can't keep up with the need. You saw that in Italy, saw that in parts of New York City. It can happen. It hadn't happened in Connecticut yet, but we're watching it.

So obviously, you know, Connecticut can't pay for all of the needs that people have. Were waiting for some money to come from the federal government. Some of the most recent plans that have been floated in Washington, a bipartisan plan would be giving a three hundred dollar check for unemployed. Who knows if that's ever going to get passed out of Washington. But there's other money out of that plan that would be coming to the states. What would you prescribe to Washington to actually come to a state like Connecticut that would help you, aside from just a really big load of money? But like what specifically would help right now in order to help you get the money to the people who need it?

Yeah, they are AWOL and it's is getting dangerous. Number one, we had a very good Kahrizak money. It was set to expire on December 31st. That's a little over three weeks away. I've got testing. I got vaccinations. I got to administer that. That's gonna require real resources. Thankfully, Connecticut has a rainy day fund, but a lot of our other governors are scrambling. What do you do? Do you stop until the federal government comes in? You take money from education. They've got to step up their number two. I would think a priority would be another round of what they called p the paycheck protection program. Ways that you could like I was mentioning in Germany, these businesses, if they have to slow down a lot or even stop for a period of time, they're compensated. People stay employed, keep them on the payroll for a period of time. Those would be two big priorities for me.

Is there any way that Connecticut can, though, because you have a rainy day fund help in some direct way? Now, if we're going to wait for Washington for another couple of months, which we very well might, Governor, does Connecticut step in and say we have to provide some of this relief on our own?

Yeah, I'm talking to the lawyers and Melissa McCall about that right now. I mean, again, my authority is within public health. That's where the people have kindly given me a little bit of discretion there. So my focus should be on vaccinations and testing, make sure it is that is not slow down one bit while we wait for the U.S. Senate to make up their mind.

But what about direct of funds to help people expanded unemployment benefits, something that goes directly to businesses, something that expands grant opportunities for businesses as well that comes from the state coffers?

I've got to be careful there, I mean, obviously, we sent out five thousand dollar checks to the ten thousand small businesses they needed. We had a variety of interim loans. We just gave ten million dollars to our not for profits and cultural centers because they've been shut down. But we don't have the wherewithal to bail out every single business in the state of Connecticut.

Do you think that those five thousand dollar checks that went out are going to have the necessary impact? From what I understand, they were aimed at businesses that had already had a pretty hard time during this year and five thousand dollars for some businesses.

And I hate to say it this way, Governor, but it might just be throwing money at a business that is not going to survive through all of this, and it's not enough to really help them pull completely out of it. But it is 5000 dollars that the state is sending away. Do you feel like that's going to have the desired impact?

What they didn't solve for world peace, but I can tell you, these are very small companies, five, 10, 15 people, they weren't at the front of the line when it came to the big peep programs administered by the federal government. And if it allows a few of these people to pay the rent and keep the electric on for a couple of extra months, hopefully we're turning a corner in January and they'll be there to fight another day.

So what happens with schools, do you think, Governor? What is your plan for keeping them open, as you've said, as long as you possibly can, given the fact that we're going through this holiday season, a lot of schools are going to take some time off. What are you hoping to see out of the K through 12 schools in the state in order to stay open as much as they possibly can?

Well, I think of the book and chapters and now it's the post Thanksgiving, we've got, say, two and a half weeks up to the holiday season when everything is going to shut down, sort of naturally. I'd like to see the schools stay open as long as they can. With that, volunteers or apprentice teachers in the classroom backing up the senior teachers we've got today. We announced that we've got I think it's about one hundred and fifty laptops out there in the field, along with free Internet service for our most disadvantaged kids. So those who can't go to school don't feel comfortable going to school, living with the grandparents. They don't feel like that's the right thing to do. They're able to learn online. You know, I get it online is not nearly as good as what you can do in the classroom. The kids I hear from all the time, those that are at home, we call it quarantine, they call it isolation. So they need that social interaction or doing everything we can, you know, month at a time. In January, let's say we got more people with a vaccine, let's say by the end of January, start able to vaccinate more of the teachers. I like to think we can get back to a new normal soon thereafter, including hockey, including hockey, all those orange pucks.

A lot of people who I'm assuming are teachers have been sending me notes saying that one of the problems with schools being open is that many of them are not equipped anywhere near as well as they should be. People aren't necessarily following guidelines. They don't have the air handling capacity to be able to filter the air properly. What do you say to those teachers who are going into work in what they consider to be dangerous conditions?

All of our numbers show has some of the lowest infection rates in the state, a much safer for a kid in that third grade classroom than home remote learning, believe it or not, we went to all the superintendents early in the summer and said, tell us what you need and we'll provide the resources. Connecticut devoted more of its cares about federal money to schools than virtually any other state in the country made it just an absolute priority. I'm sorry. Nothing is going to be perfect. Nothing's going to be 100 percent safe in this lousy covid environment. But you've got to know we're doing everything we can in those schools. And I think we've shown some real success there.

You did announce today that every public school student in Connecticut will have the technology to be able to log in to learn remotely during the pandemic your administration says is the first state in the nation to do this. And that seems like a really good step here, making sure that kids can learn at home. One thing we found, though, is that an awful lot of kids who are learning at home actually aren't showing up. So you are making it possible for them. But we don't have people attending school at anywhere near the levels that they need to. How do we address this other issue?

It's a little better than that. I mean, we're able to track who's logging on and, you know, it is probably, at least according to Nick Simmons is doing the analysis about ninety five percent. They're on for maybe four hours, you may say. Well, that's not as good as seven hours, which is, you know, a normal school day, but it's pretty good in that close to the curriculum. But you're right, I'm also looking at a lot of data from around the country and I see kids are falling behind. And so I'm not going to pretend for a nanosecond that this works for everybody and in particular for some of our most disadvantaged kids. It breaks my heart. And we've got some towns where they never open the schools at all. Those kids have not been in school for seven or eight months now, and those are seven or eight months. That's tough to ever get back.

You said ninety five percent. Ninety five percent of what?

95 percent of the kids who are remote learning Log-On, I think that's on a daily basis, really, because I mean, I've heard depending on the school district, much, much lower numbers than that.

An awful lot of kids not attending very often at all. And that's something that is obviously going to be district to district. Some of the more disadvantaged school districts are going to have much lower numbers. I assume that's the sort of thing that you're trying to mitigate by making sure that everyone has the technology in schools to be able to learn at home.

Yeah, we can't beat a game for all those variables, but we've tried our best. Here's the box. We're training your parents, although you don't need much help and don't know how we're going to set this curriculum up or providing free monthly service for relatively high speed Internet. We commuted. We created about one hundred and sixty. I think it is hot spots around the state are libraries. So other places people get access. And by the way, John, it's about education, but it's about telehealth. It's about communication. I mean, what rural electrification was the 1930s. I think Internet is to the 20 20. So I think that's something we've learned in the last 12 months. We didn't know it before.

Well, I'll tell you, since you're talking about that and I want to come back to some some right now issues, but I'm going to be asking you a little bit about some some future plans. And that sort of sounds like something that the state should be thinking about for the next couple of years. Post covid. If there's something that we've learned, it's that making sure that we actually have the technology to be able to learn and work from wherever is more important now than ever. Is that one of your main priorities coming up in this, say, next legislative session?

Yes, absolutely. I mean, not everybody, but people are rediscovering Connecticut, let's say our small towns and sleepy suburbs are not ideal for the hit metropolitan kids going back the last 10, 15 years. I've got kids. I hear it all the time. Now we have tens of thousands of people moving back to Connecticut. A lot of them are young young families. They're finding they don't have to be in New York or Boston every day, but then maybe they've got to be in a Stamford in New Haven at least a couple of times a week. But if you have high speed Internet access, that is invaluable in terms of linking them and allowing them to work from home.

So. So you would make that a legislative priority? I mean, do you have a plan to to try to expand high speed Internet service across the state?

Yeah, I mean, you maybe remember, you know, a year or so ago, we announced that we got a five G on Metro North. I was really focused on transportation, of course. And so I wanted to make sure that wasn't an hour totally wasted. So that's to me one of the very first five G corridors in the country. Now we'll work with the telecom companies. You know, we can expand that out more broadly, you know, for small towns, not just big cities.

We've got a couple of questions coming in about what's one of the looming crises that you're facing here. And it has to do with evictions. So many people can't make rent right now. I know that your administration has made some rent relief possible, but this entire problem is going on far beyond the the forty million dollars that you've been able to put into this. How do you think about this problem of evictions and all the other people who can't make their mortgages because of what's happening with covid? What does the state do about that?

Well, first of all, we did put, you know, tens of millions of dollars in and unlike I may have been too complicated on this job, but rather than just hand that out as grants and say, please pay the landlord, what we said was, here's some money. Landlords can contact us, tenants can contact us. We tried to put together an arrangement will provide 50 percent. If you keep this person in their home for at least the next six months, that requires some negotiation. But I thought that was a more long term and permanent solution than otherwise. Secondly, I got to keep people employed. I got to keep them able to keep working, collecting a paycheck so they can, you know, continue to stay in their homes. We cannot have a mass eviction crisis. And frankly, if it gets bigger, we're going to make the federal government again to step up is too big for any state just to do it by themselves.

Yeah, it really is. I mean, and that's the thing. Your plan, whether it was complicated or not, it provided assistance, needed assistance for for the six months. And now this is a crisis that is extending far beyond that. It's going to take tens of millions more dollars. You're saying that this may be a problem for the federal government to step in in order to provide some sort of backstop?

Well, it'd be a lot more complete, but in the meantime, Connecticut has put the resources up and our Department of Housing is doing the negotiations as best we can to make sure people can stay in their homes. People have a right to stay in their homes. We need them to stay in their homes. I can't have homeless again, can have homeless people, especially during the pandemic where they're infected, infecting others. We are in this together and that starts with housing.

I want to get back to the levers that the state can pull right now. Obviously, you don't want to draw down this rainy day fund, this couple billion dollars that you have in the bank right now because you're also facing budget deficits at the state level. There's a lot of other things that you need to do right now. How are you thinking about these budget reserves in the best ways to use them? You've been very protective of them to this point. And I think it's all it's fair to say. It is now a rainy day in Connecticut. So what do we do with this? What's what's your plan to to spend this money in the wisest way possible?

Well, as you know.

The feds help this out with covid related expenses up until December thirty first, then it's a jump ball. What they did not do is say we're not going to help you out with the revenues you didn't get. So as you can imagine, our sales tax or income tax, other tax revenues are down quite a bit. That was part of the purpose of a rainy day fund. We didn't want every time there was that type of revenue shortfall, that type of recession, you had the jack up taxes or slash social services. We wanted to study that out. So thank God we didn't spend the way the rainy day fund last year. There are some ideas in that direction. We have husband of those reserves. So for the near term, public health, for the medium term, make sure we don't have to slash services and raise taxes.

Let's talk about some of your your priorities coming up, because not all of the job of governor is going to be about dealing with this covid crisis, although it must it must seem like that right now. I'll just ask you first to step into that place where you have to think, all right, what are my other priorities other than leading the state through through this crisis? Have you have you put together a list of things that that Ned Lamont really wants to get done over the course of this next year that really don't have anything to do with the thing that we're all suffering through right now?

Yeah, I mean, I came into office with a couple of goals, the number one was jobs. This is a state that hadn't created a net new jobs in 30 years. I just figured this was the time for us to make sure people are educated for the jobs that are out there right now. They're great jobs in advanced manufacturing and life sciences and bioscience and fintech. And we weren't training people for those jobs. I thought this is their opportunity to raise people up and give them that best opportunity. And that's why our focus was so on education. I don't think that's changed is a goal. I don't think that has changed in terms of a priority for the state of Connecticut. But sort of how I think about it is maybe a little different. We have to really train people, very specialized jobs out there right now. First, I got to get them into the classroom. And that was part of what the distance learning is. You know, a year ago I talked about technology was all about taking a sort of inefficient state government that was very manual and labor intensive and bring it into the 21st century with some technology investments that would be provide better customer service at less cost. Now, as we were talking about, John, technology is much broader. It's having a five G state where everybody can telo learn telehealth and telecommute from wherever they are in the state, which makes it just as cool to be in Connecticut. It is anywhere you can earn a really good living.

A whole lot of your your term here has been talking about transportation up to this point, about tolls, about trying to get people riding the rails, not necessarily sitting in traffic. And a lot of, you know, frankly, your political capital was was used on this issue of tolls over time. And I'm sure you're probably sick of talking about that. I guess my first question is, are we going to be talking about either tolls or an expanded gas tax during this upcoming legislative session?

Well, let's start with the facts. A year ago. I said, we've got a transportation fund that's going bankrupt. It'll go bankrupt in five years. People aren't driving as much. Gas prices are low. You're driving a Tesla, whatever the reason. So we've got to deal with this. And I know it's a hard decision. I know legislature will soon borrow or put it off. And I made a proposal. You're right. My proposal was electronic tolling on a trucks, trucks and cars. A lot of it paid for by out of staters that went nowhere. What was frustrating to me, John, is the legislature not only would they not vote on my idea, they wouldn't vote on any idea. They sort of walked away. So I've got to do a better job of working with them, sitting down with the transportation leaders, say whatever it is is not going to be politically popular. I apologize about that. But we've got to make some tough choices. And part of that is how you pay for the transportation fund. Now, that part of that's going to be pensions. Another part of that is how we bring down health care costs. There's a lot of big stuff that nobody ever wants to do. What they hope it goes away at least until after the next election. And that's not what I was elected to do.

So the possibility of having some of these same conversations in the future, the gas tax is a is a new way to maybe have this conversation that doesn't involve the dreaded word tolls.

I put a different way last time I lived with my chick, this time to sit in a room with the leaders, the legislative leaders, the transportation leaders, and I lay out five different ways that we can start dealing with the transportation in a serious way. And then you give me your best ideas. And if it's raining the rainy day fund, I'll say I'm kind of glad we didn't do that. But we can talk about it if it's just more borrowing, I can say that we can talk about, but it's probably not in the best interests of the state. But I'm going to make ask them to come up with a real solution and hopefully vote on something.

A last transportation question. Has any of this changed your thinking about how we invest in transportation? The idea of getting on a crowded train or a crowded bus with a bunch of other people, as good as that is for the environment or as good as that is for our planning, is not the thing that people are going to want to do any time soon.

Well, that's fair, I mean, driving has come back to say eighty five percent of where we were prepared and taking the train has come back and 20 percent of where we were pre pandemic. To your point, people don't want to be in a subway in New York City. So they're coming out to Connecticut and they're coming out to Connecticut and they don't want to necessarily be on a train. So short term, what that means is I reallocate how the train cars are Metro, Metro, North and the MTA. They're bankrupt in New York City. Right. They're absolutely bankrupt. So they're going to cut back on rail service. We figure out how we can reallocate this, not costing people money, but maybe get more service. And some of the lesser occupied lines, it doesn't make you rethink things.

I know it is not lost on you that there have been a number of stories written, a number of studies done about who has suffered most during this pandemic and who has gained the most billionaires in this country have accrued far more wealth than they had previously, by and large. And people who are not billionaires have suffered. Many have lost their jobs. Many of them are never going to recover their small businesses. Is now the time to start to think about raising taxes on the richest individuals in the state who have done better than all the rest of us?

Now is the time to think about raising taxes on the richest individuals in the country. I think it's really dumb to do it just by the state. We already have some of the highest income tax rates in the country and we pay a price for that. That said, I was a strong supporter of Joe Biden. Joe Biden said we've got glaring deficits. We're shortchanging the underserved. And I think the wealthy and the corporations are going to have to do a little bit more. So rather than totally disadvantage the state of Connecticut just when we have some competitive advantage. People are moving here. I do support what you're saying broadly in terms of what you've got to do at the federal level. I think it makes a lot more sense.

But I also just tell you. You know, you look at how this pandemic is hitting people, it hits, you know, not just the elderly, but it hits people of color particularly hard.

A lot of preexisting conditions. We really realize the incredible health disparities and how they impact the different communities in our state. I take that to heart. If you want to know. If we used to say, you know, universal health care is a good idea, it is sort of a slogan. It's no slogan. It is absolutely vital to your health and the public health to get this right. And that's something I'd love to see the federal government step up on doing in a serious way. And if they're not, we're going to think about it here at the Connecticut level.

Well, but you may have to think about it, because I can't see that a Joe Biden administration, with what is likely to be a GOP Senate is going to do anything in the next four years or two years that's going to move in that direction. And the state of Connecticut might need to pull that trigger much sooner.

I don't know, Governor, you might not be able to wait for them.

I got to take a different point of view. This country cannot have four years of gridlock and we can't get it done. The state can't have four years of gridlock. And I can't figure out what to do about transportation and pensions. And it's a 10 times more severe at the federal level. The number of things that just stopped dead and don't get addressed is intolerable. Public health is front and center. So if after 12 months of a knee knocking a pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of people, our neighbors, our friends, our family, the federal government can't figure out how to put their partisan biases in the way a suitcase and step up for six months, I really worry about our future.

I completely I hear you and I completely do, too. I guess my question is, at some point, though, does the state have to say we may have to give up our competitive advantage on on tax rates for the richest individuals? Because people in our state are suffering in a way that we need to fund. We need to find the money here because those bozos aren't going to do it and not worthy on that, John.

I mean, I started out by saying we haven't added a new job in 35 years and is leaving and other folks are leaving and we can't get our fiscal house in order. And last one out, turn out the lights. That's a state we sort of heard a lot about going back a couple of years. I'm doing my best to turn around and doing our best to turn around the attitude and perception of the state. Make it a place where people want to be making a place that has great schools. Our schools are open that open some of these other states. I think that's a big plus. I'm putting my money where our mouth is when it comes to education and making those investments going forward. But being competitive and being a place where people want to work and start up businesses is part of making Connecticut a great state.

You mentioned the outsized impact that covid has had on people of color. Obviously, so much has happened throughout the course of this year. What is your administration's plan moving forward into this next session to address some of the systemic inequality that has really come into such sharp focus after the death of George Floyd and others and and so many of the mass protests that have happened over the course of this year?

Well, I mean, first of all, when it comes to health care.

We got everybody we did we expanded health care coverage broadly over the last nine months. We took testing to the communities. We took testing to the church parking lots. We're going to take vaccinations to the same communities. When you say, how do you prioritize who gets it? You sure you don't prioritize based on wealth, my friend? You don't prioritize based on zip code. That was the wrong thing to do. It is a stupid way to go. We've got to make sure everybody has coverage. And I say that more broadly about health care going forward from that, you know, I take it that education and making sure that none of those kids are left behind, which is why it breaks my heart that these suburban kids are going to school five days a week and they're doing it relatively safely. Know a private school, a parochial school, a charter school, they're open. And yet the kids in some of our biggest cities don't have access to a school. If they want to go there full time, that hurts them, makes it really difficult for their parents. So you want to know where my priorities are? There are a couple.

One of the things I talked to the incoming House speaker, Matt Ritter, about is the possibility of the state actually looking at a public option this time around.

We've talked about health care that has expanded, that is more affordable. The health care exchange in the state is something that has extended health benefits to more people, but it's frankly fairly unaffordable to most people. I'm wondering if this is the session that you can get together with some legislative leaders and talk about a public option.

It depends what it means, if it means buy into the state employee health care pool. I looked it up when I was a small business 10 years ago and was going to cost me a fortune. So that was not what it means. If it means working with health insurance community, creating a preferred network where people go to hospitals that have higher value, a little bit less cost, it make it more affordable for everybody. Sign me up.

And do you plan to talk to legislative leaders about that? I mean, is that something you want to take to them this time around or is that something that you're you're going to wait to hear from lawmakers on?

Well, no, I don't wait to hear from lawmakers, I sit down with the leadership and they know what they think. But by the way, I I love the legislators. I talk to them. I also talk to the hospital administrators. I also talk to the insurance guys, the health insurance guys who say where the insurance capital of America be a leader on this. You're right. If you're going to have a small business and individuals who are priced out of the market, you're darn right the legislature is going to come up with something that sounds great, called the public option. If you got to come up with a low cost way that we can get more people insured for quality medicine.

I just have a couple more minutes left with you, and I've talked about taxes a couple of different times, this is a different tax question. You promised when you ran for governor that you're going to provide some income tax relief to to middle income individuals. We're not talking about tax relief for the richest residents, that income tax relief relief hasn't happened yet. Is that one of the levers that can be pulled to try to get more money back into people's hands as we try to come out of this this Koven situation?

When I was really focused on this property tax, to tell you the truth, because we have we have very high property taxes, property taxes are unrelenting. You can be laid off. You still got to pay that property tax. But the first way that I can help out municipalities when it comes to holding property taxes down or low is honoring our commitments in terms of municipal aid, in terms of educational aid. And that we did we inherited a three point seven dollars billion deficit and we kept faith in terms of aid there, in terms of municipalities and education. That's a good start. You know, longer term. Yep. I'd like to look at a property tax, like look at pilot, which is paying the lower taxes, other ways to bring down the cost and middle class taxes. But first off, I've got to balance the budget, work our way through a covered crisis.

If you could quickly give me one or two more priorities that you have personally that you want to get addressed during this next upcoming legislative session.

Voting, I I think we showed that we can make it easier for people to vote absentee ballots, even early voting, we can do it safely, we can do it honestly. We can do it with integrity. And, you know, maybe the primary was a dress rehearsal in the general election. It worked pretty well. And by the way, I think people liked it. They appreciated it. And this won't be the last covid crisis we ever have. So I think that should be another priority.

So, so expanding voting, early voting, which clearly worked at something that a whole lot of people in the legislature want to do to you think you can get that done?

I think so there's something about the Constitution and two thirds vote, so I'll ask Matt writer for the five points on that, but it's where I want to go.

Governor Lamont, you've been very generous with your time, and I know that you have to go to yet another thing that you have to do, because you've got a lot to do right now. I really want to thank you for spending some time and for answering all these questions that came in. Hundreds of questions came in from from people. And I try to weave as many of them in as I possibly could.

But thank you again for your time. I used to be an entrepreneur. The first thing I'm going to change now, I'm doing all the zone stuff so I can look at you in the eyes instead of always having to look down at this little lens here. I've always been told by my mother, look, people are the eyes. So that's going to be my work on my next life. Yeah. Everybody, I just want you to know it's it's a tough time, but I've never been so proud of the state of Connecticut that we have really come together. Politics is just a messy business, except when we're confronted with a crisis. And I really think Connecticut has done us proud. That is proud by those nurses who show up every day. The teachers in the classroom, each and every one of you were in the mask. I know it's easy to say I'm tired. Not this time I'm frustrated. And that's not what Connecticut is doing. And if we hang in there, we hang tough for another four, eight weeks. I really do think there's a gold line in sight and it starts with that vaccine is coming in a couple weeks. So stick with us. We're going to do it. Thanks, John.

Thanks so much, Governor. And thanks to everyone who joined us tonight. And as Bruce said at the beginning of this, if you haven't done this yet, you can go to the Connecticut Mirror Page. It's your dog and you click on that little donate button in the upper right hand corner and you can make a donation. And some of those donations will be matched up to 5000 dollars. It's a news match project that we're doing to the end of this year. This time of year is critical for nonprofit news sources. I used to work for public radio. I still do quite a bit of work for public radio, and it's vital in that world. But it's really vital for small organizations like the Connecticut Mirror that are trying to do something that is not done any place else. Look, there aren't a whole lot of Connecticut mirrors around. The reason is they're hard to do. You get some of the best journalists from all over the state covering something that's really dense and complex and telling stories that you can understand, stories that help you make policy if that's your business, stories that help, you know, whether or not to send your kid to school or have your kid learn at home. These are the types of stories that the Connecticut Mirror tells. And I really encourage you to support nonprofit journalism right now, support your local public radio station, support your newspapers, but support the Connecticut mirror. It's your dog. And when you go there, you can also click on our city, have us link. And when you do that, you can sign up for the podcast if you haven't done that already. Some of this conversation on our podcast tomorrow will have more great conversations between now and the end of the year. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy holidays to everyone. Thank you for joining us.

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