(Hartford, Connecticut) — Yesterday, the 103rd Airlift Wing of the Connecticut Air National Guard received a critical new mission at Bradley Air Base, but they received it without pay.  That’s because Connecticut’s bravest men and women are serving even despite the reckless GOP shutdown that’s furloughed them.  Republican gubernatorial candidates Toni Boucher, Mark Boughton, Tom Foley and John McKinney have all embraced the GOP shutdown, so the Connecticut Democratic Party asks the GOP gubernatorial candidates how they can support not paying our troops? Will the GOP candidates finally stand up to their colleagues in Washington to demand this shutdown ends so Connecticut jobs are protected and our military personnel get paychecks?

Background:

From Friday’s column in The Day regarding the GOP candidates and the shutdown:

John McKinney “I could not get him to condemn the strategy of linking a government shutdown with demands to change the health care law. This is classic pre-primary politics: reach to the extremes of your party, then hustle back to the center before the general election.”

Mark Boughton “He said linking negotiations about the health care act to a government shutdown is OK with him. ‘It’s how sausage is made,’ he said.”

Toni Boucher “She told another newspaper this week, while complaining about the health care act, that we’ve had shutdowns before and they haven’t been that bad.”

Tom Foley “Foley, according to one newspaper interview he gave earlier this week, has sided with the tea party, saying that he endorses the strategy of House Republicans to shut down the government to extract changes in the Affordable Care Act. ‘So I support what they are doing,’ Foley was quoted as saying.”

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