Does anyone in your family work in politics or government: No The single most pressing issue facing our state is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it. State employee retirement benefits. I will work to fully fund them, and reform the abuses and pension padding that leads to unaffordable, excess benefits for far too many of our public sector workers. This has never been more true during the current recession, where middle class workers and businesses have been hit hard, while our government workers were not subject to any layoffs, and received multiple salary raises. State compensation and benefit costs crowd out other important spending that our people want, but can't afford. I will stand up for Connecticut taxpayers.