“We got a budget done a lot of people didn’t think that was going to happen and it actually came together”, Malloy said.
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CT lawmakers are moving closer toward passing a $19.7 billion Democratic budget that attempts to fix a projected $960 million deficit in the new fiscal year.
Malloy said the budget legislation includes language that ends the practice of automatically increasing spending on state programs based on current spending levels.
The bill cleared the Democratic controlled Senate on Thursday along party lines.
This budget makes more than $820 million in long-term cuts, which helps mitigate long-term deficits, ” Malloy said.
Since that supposed principle hasn’t stopped the governor and many legislators before, causing them instead to raise taxes, what they really mean is: “We’ve raised taxes by huge amounts twice in the last six years and economic conditions in the state are only worsening, so we shouldn’t do it again – at least not until we’re past the next legislative election, which is only six months away”.
Besides the budget bill, House members are expected to vote on several other budget-related bills, including one that spells out details of the tax-and-spending plan. “Structural change says we can’t go on living the way we’re living”. Some sparked criticism from minority Republicans, who unsuccessfully tried to replenish some cuts with funds from the public campaign financing account.
Many unionized state employees gathered outside the Senate chambers Thursday, hoping to persuade senators to oppose the budget bill. Nonpartisan analysts have estimated it would take more than 2,900 job cuts just to save $200 million per year – significantly less in savings than the budget counts on. They predicted rape crisis counselors, probation officers, corrections officers, nurses, mental health workers and people who work with children and the disabled will be among those who will lose their jobs under the plan. There are 650 executive branch employees and 239 Judicial Branch employees who have already received their pink slips.
“Certainly there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of positions that will not be filled because of this budget”, she said, adding how the Democrats made “difficult reductions” they wish they didn’t have to make.
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The budget was approved 74-70 after a six-and-a-half-hour debate and the rejection of four amendments from minority Republicans who charged that the plan does not represent the structural changes CT needs.
