Connecticut Veterans' Wartime Service Medal Ceremony

I was honored to address recipients of the Connecticut Veterans' Wartime Service Medal at the special ceremony recently in Shelton. The medal is given by the Department of Veteran's Affairs to all military personnel who served in a time of war. During this moving ceremony, 347 medals were awarded to veterans with qualifying military service who live in Shelton. We did a similar ceremony in Stratford, and more are being held throughout the state.

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

Balance Budget Without Raising Taxes

As our nation faces an unprecedented financial crisis that threatens to wipe out jobs, investments, businesses and retirement savings, Connecticut confronts its greatest budget deficit in recent history. Both the non-partisan Office of Fiscal Analysis and the Office of Policy and Management agree that the deficit for the fiscal year ending in June will be approximately $300 million and is likely to grow to more than $2 billion over the next two fiscal years.

At the same time, the wages of working families aren’t keeping up with expenses. The rising cost of healthcare, home heating fuel, gasoline, food and other services, coupled with our state’s high tax rates have created conditions that many are finding hard to weather. It is clear that government at all levels is faced with very difficult choices.

We need to adjust our spending habits — now.

I discussed the budget outlook and the options we have address this growing problem with Speaker Jim Amann on Fox61's Beyond the Headlines this past Sunday.

Find Energy Assistance and Tax Breaks

Winter will soon be here. Record energy prices are on everyone's mind - and for good reason. Consumers could be paying more than $5/gallon for their oil this year and the cost of natural gas and electricity is rising as well. Connecticut offers many programs to help pay heating bills, improve energy efficiency in your home, provide incentives to install renewable energy systems, and to defray the cost of purchasing hybrid vehicles.

Because finding the program that is right for you can be a time-consuming challenge, many state programs are underutilized. We have put together an interactive citizen's guide to help you quickly identify the tax breaks and energy assistance you need for your home or business. Click the site icon above to explore this guide.

Cut & Cap the Gas Tax

Here’s what Democrats do not want you to know: every time the price of gas goes up, it’s “good news” for the state treasury because of the Petroleum Gross Receipts Tax, which adds a 7% tax to the cost of gasoline in Connecticut.

So today, Representative Cafero and I wrote to every member of the legislature and asked them to sign a petition calling for a Special Session to cut and cap the Gross Receipts Tax, and require that such tax reduction be passed on to consumers.

We only need 6 more signatures in the Senate and a simple majority in the House to cut and cap the gas tax.

Connecticut motorists pay more than 50 cents/gallon in state gas taxes (more than half of which comes from the Gross Receipts Tax at today’s prices). That amounts to more than $7.50 every time you fill-up a 15-gallon fuel tank.

The Gross Receipts Tax was increased to pay for major transportation projects, but due to record gas prices, the state is taking in approximately $200 million in windfall revenues beyond what is needed for transportation. Today, nearly 60% of the revenue from this tax is being used to feed a bloated and growing state bureaucracy.

You can visit our home page to see if your senator has signed the petition to cut and cap the gas tax. If they haven’t, please contact them today and tell them that you don’t think Connecticut should have the highest gas tax in the region.