The Greenwich Democratic Town Committee was asked a simple question about a half-billion-dollar side fund. It responded with a panicked smear:  Calling Tina Courpas and Ryan Fazio “heartless” members of a “tiny Scrooge minority.” 

That is, increasingly, the Democrat way. When they cannot defend themselves, they call people names.

Courpas and Fazio did not vote against providing food, housing, or health care to Connecticut citizens. The DTC says they did. That is false.

Courpas and Fazio both support the state helping citizens who have been hurt by federal funding cuts. Courpas said so herself: “State government should step in. I support that goal wholeheartedly.” They never objected to helping people. They objected to the method chosen by the Democrat majority.

Five hundred million dollars was pulled from Connecticut’s Budget Reserve Fund and parked in a slush fund to backfill federal cuts with state money. No cuts identified. No public hearing. No budget process. The Governor alone decides how to spend it. Six legislative leaders get 24 hours to reject a proposal. They cannot change it. Four of those six are Democrats.

That is a radical departure from how the state is supposed to appropriate money. The same aid could have been approved in the budget process — quickly, in public, and with a real vote.

Democrats Steve Meskers and Hector Arzeno voted yes, breaking the fiscal guardrails they promised to uphold. They agreed to almost no accountability for half a billion dollars.

Greenwich Democrats fail to mention that. Instead, it lies; claiming Courpas and Fazio voted against feeding hungry people, keeping people housed, and providing health care.

That is simply untrue.

Courpas and Fazio chose responsible government over a blank check. Calling them “heartless” does not answer their legitimate objections to the slush fund. It shows how little the DTC has to say in defense of it. And it shows how worried Greenwich Democrats are about Meskers’s and Arzeno’s votes.

In Greenwich, we can disagree on policy without baseless smears. Courpas and Fazio still do. Greenwich Democrats prefer to personally vilify two Republicans and hope no one notices who actually signed off on the slush fund.

Compassion and accountability can exist together. That is what we have in Fazio and Courpas. Name-calling does not change the facts. It only proves that Democrats are losing the debate.