To The Editor:

For a long time, I did the thing a lot of people do, I complained about my bills and just sort of vaguely blamed "the government," whichever version of it was in the news that week. It took me a long time to actually sit down and ask myself which government was responsible for which bill.

Turns out most of what's actually squeezing us, our electric rates, our car taxes, the property tax bills that keep climbing higher and higher, traces back to decisions made in Hartford, NOT Washington. Hartford isn't some closely divided battleground where both parties share the blame like its federal counterpart. Democrats in Connecticut have held a supermajority in both chambers of the legislature and the Governor's office for years now. When one party has had that much power for that long, they don't get to point to the superminority party when things go wrong.

I'm not trying to escalate this conversation into a debate on national politics. That’s actually the opposite of what I’m trying to do. It's about noticing that the people actually setting these rates and passing these laws are a lot closer to home than anyone in Washington, and they want you to think that somehow it isn’t their fault for the decline of our state over the years. Amybeth Laroche is one of the few candidates I’ve seen bold enough to openly talk about it that way too, which is part of why she's getting my vote.

Tracy Ritter

Sandy Hook