From The CT Mirror:
The Senate voted 19 to 17 shortly after 3 a.m. today to pass and send to the House a $40.1 billion biennial budget loaded with a broad array of tax and fee increases that Gov. Dannel P. Malloy says are necessary to stabilize Connecticut’s rocky finances.
Debate began at 4:18 p.m. Monday on a budget that sets Malloy, who was elected last year as the state’s first Democratic governor in 20 years, apart from the nation’s other governors by embracing nearly $2.6 billion tax increases over the next two years. House approval is expected later today.
Full story: ctmirror.org/story/12442/senate-poised-approve-malloys-first-budget
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How can they pass a bill without knowing what if any the Union concessions will be? This is the height of stupidity.
It is easier for legislators to pass bills than it is for most of them to comprehend the entire picture of what they are doing. In a way that is how we have gotten where we are on Federal, State and municipal levels.
Mayor Finch provided an example of success last year with his $8 Million of “activity to be solved in the following year.” Voila!!! It has worked, hasn’t it? Union negotiations and settlements and police overtime rolled back, and ?, and? … can you tell me what really has happened? Perhaps last year we had a number of vacant city positions that were funded for salary and benefits that are still vacant? Where were those funds used? And how much was involved? Have you ever seen a list of the Mayor’s claimed 200 reduction in employees? Does it include the vacancies? Does it cover positions unfilled but other new positions hired so the net employee effect is much less than 200? Shouldn’t we know or be able to verify each one of the Mayor’s claims?
Governor Malloy’s statement has been about “sharing the pain.” It takes some time for that to happen so I will give him a year to show where are real give-backs that will assist the State’s financial position in a long-term manner.
In the meantime I think Mayor Finch has only “increased future pain” on the taxpayers by his actions in secretly handling pension and OPEB obligations so as to keep tax payments approximately level. Candidates for office can look at each item in his Mission Statement in 2007 or in his recent pronouncements on the State of the City. Compare the claim to the reality! Calculate the real change necessary to deliver what he claims. Contemplate what you will do that is different. Now is the time to look at the claims and debunk them where you can. It is Spring and the ground is fertile. Turn the soil. Plant the seeds. The voter is smarter than previously understood. Use the technology to get the younger voter engaged and following the campaign. It is their Bridgeport that is being compromised most seriously and until they see the score, they will not know what to think or do.
Malloy’s budget must have been made up by our very own Tom Sherwood. Pass a budget and pray the unions roll over.
In the meantime these damned senators voted to raise the taxes on an already overburdened population. Great job Gomes and Musto. Not a damned thing from the unions. We are the only state that is killing its taxpayers. This is bullshit.