Appearance on Face the State

On Sunday I appeared on WFSB's Face the State to discuss Connecticut's growing budget deficit. We need to take shift action to cut spending-- otherwise we will face an unacceptable tax increase. In this segment, I lay out some specific ideas to cut spending introduced by the Governor and legislative Republicans.

Since this taping the situation has grown more dire. On Tuesday, the Office of Policy and Management revised their deficit estimate for the current fiscal year to nearly $922 million. The current projected deficit for FY2010-11 will probably also grow from the current $6 billion estimate.

I am committed to working with Governor Rell to cut spending to eliminate the deficit, and I am prepared to help make the difficult decisions that face us. If you have additional ideas you believe we should be looking at, please e-mail me at dan.debicella@cga.ct.gov.

The Legislature of Too Little, Too Late

On Wednesday the Connecticut General Assembly again convened for the purpose of closing the state’s $356 million budget deficit, and again adjourned leaving the job unfinished. The mitigation plan passed by the legislature, but opposed by all 49 Republicans, resulted in only $120 million in savings to the General Fund and included new spending for a controversial Democrat-backed program that has never even received a public hearing.

That’s right – the General Assembly got together in order to cut spending and close the budget deficit and instead passed a bill that included new spending and left the deficit largely intact. And all this happened despite Senate President Don Williams’ promise in January that “any proposal that costs money, that doesn’t pay for itself, is almost assuredly dead on arrival.”

For her part, Governor Rell will reluctantly sign the mitigation plan into law, because she knows it is the most she can get out of the legislature at this time. But Governor Rell also acknowledged that the Democrats “didn’t make as many cuts as we needed” and “cannot continue to be the legislature of too little, too late” if we are to overcome our budget crisis, put people back to work and get our economy moving again.

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Connecticut's State Deficit.... growing by the second