Amann throws down with Mother

Let me be the first to say, "Wow!"

The day after Governor Rell dropped her little bomblet earlier this week about how she wants to raise our taxes, House Speaker James Amann wasted no time letting us know exactly how he feels. This from today's Hartford Courant:

...the House speaker on Thursday charged she "didn't have the guts to tell people" during last fall's election campaign that she planned to raise taxes.

The allegation by Democratic House Speaker James Amann was part of a sometimes fiery, sometimes condescending exchange of statements between him and the governor over funding her plan for sweeping improvements to the state's public schools.

That was cool, but things heated up when Jodi and Jim started an ugly and extremely public dialogue about their positions:

"Frankly, the speaker is the speaker of the House. He knows better," Rell chided. "That's not how you operate."

Awww, no she didn't!

The ball had been spiked firmly back into Amann's court. God knows, but Jim seems to love this kind of exchange:

Told of that remark, Amann retorted, "I don't need Mother Rell to wag her finger in my face about budgets." Then he assailed her for not talking about tax increases before an election she ultimately won in a landslide.

BTW, who was the little tattletale who "told" Amann of Rell's remark? Seems like someone's being a "busy body" (could it have been the author of the Courant article, Chris Keating? Who knows...no random reporter usually has the uncommon luck to hear both sides comment on the issue without being something of an instigator!)

Jodi rallied when discussing the one billion dollar surplus the state apparently is hoarding for a rainy day with this statement:

"My comment to that is this is exactly the mistake that was made in the early '80s, when people said we have this money, let's go ahead and pay for this new program," Rell said. "And the next year, it wasn't there. The worst thing we could do now is use one-time revenue for any ongoing program."

She added: "It's just not feasible to do that. ... There's some tough decisions to be made."

Amann responded in true "I will CRUSH you!" style with a classy smackdown of the Governor:

"First of all, she's all wet," Amann said of Rell. "We raised too many taxes already or else we wouldn't have a surplus. Somebody's being overtaxed, and I think the governor should understand that. I don't need to be lectured by someone who was part of the Rowland-Rell administration. Give me a break!"

Jesus H. Christ, but I really do love the way Jim talks! Who still says something like "she's all wet"? I can't write shit as good as what he spews out of his mouth in the presence of journalists...or even, for that matter, in the presence of any jackass who happens to be holding a video camera! Jim speaks with the total abandon of someone who just doesn't give a shit what people think!

That's an admirable and extremely rare trait these days. Most politicians will take a moment to compose a politically-advantageous (or at least non-controversial) response, while Jim Amann tends to speak exactly what's on his mind. The only time he uses a filter is when he stops and thinks about the reprecussions of what he's going to say...

...and that's when you have to worry!