Stratford Republican Legislators Propose “No Tax Increase” State Budget

Representative John Harkins (R-120) Representative Lawrence Miller (R-122) and Senator Dan Debicella (R-21) have proposed an alternative state budget that avoids massive tax increases by cutting government spending, merging state agencies, offering an early retirement incentive program for state employees, freezing state employee salaries, and requiring state employee benefit concessions.The Republican proposal is an alternative to the Democratic budget proposed earlier this month that increases income taxes, sales taxes, corporate taxes, estate taxes, cigarette taxes, and eliminates the middle class property tax exemption.

“There are businesses planning on moving out of the state after the Democrats announced their plans for more taxes and a 30% increase in the corporate surcharge,” said Rep. Harkins. “Just the fact they proposed these increase have people making decisions to cut back expansion and get out of Connecticut. This is the wrong direction for Connecticut and sends a poor message. Right now Connecticut residents are being laid off by the thousands by companies that can’t make payroll. The proposal the majority put forth which would increase taxes on people who are struggling and put new taxes on businesses that are on the verge of failing is foolish in the extreme. We think that government should tighten its belt before we tell people in the highest taxed state in the nation that they need to pay more. We can do this without increasing taxes or lowering municipal aid.”

The Republicans’ proposal would preserve existing state funding for Stratford, including Education Cost Sharing (ECS) funds. “Stratford received a 21% increase in ECS funding in 2007-2009, and it is critical that we preserve those gains,” said Senator Debicella.

“We should not be raising taxes in a recession,” said Senator Debicella, the Ranking Member of the Appropriations Committee. “Instead, we need to cut the bloat of bureaucracy. Building on the Governor’s budget, we have proposed reinventing state government through shifting social services to community providers, rolling back spending on most state agencies to 2007 levels, and asking for employee concessions.”

“The “business as usual” ways of taxing Connecticut into prosperity and throwing state dollars at failed programs must stop now. If the Tea Party taxpayer protests taught us nothing, it told me the taxpayers are fed up with government, and how big and intrusive it has become,” said Representative Miller.

The Republican budget proposal contains all the spending reductions included in Governor Rell’s original proposal, but includes additional reductions because the deficit has increased by over $2 billion since she presented her budget in February. Additional areas of savings include:

• Rolling back spending for all non-essential programs to 2007 levels ($500 million savings)
• Shifting 50% of social services to private providers by 2011 ($200 million savings)
• Early retirement for state employees ($300 million savings)
• State worker concessions for salary, health care and pension benefits ($650 million savings)
• Folding 16 agencies into three and implementing a hiring freeze to reduce overhead costs
• Overhauling the higher education bureaucracy that duplicates services and drives up tuition for families struggling to pay for college
• Engaging private companies that can perform duties such as state park maintenance