Republicans Say Malloy’s Budget Doesn’t Strike Right Balance
by Christine Stuart | Feb 15, 2011 3:29pm
(13) Comments | Commenting has expired
Posted to: State Budget
(Updated 5:27 p.m.) After an more than two-hour briefing, sans donuts and coffee, Republican lawmakers said Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s budget didn’t strike the right balance between spending cuts and tax increases.
House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero, R-Norwalk, said he asked some simple questions of Malloy’s Budget Director Ben Barnes, and some of the answers he received are not going to make his constituents happy.
For instance, he asked how many employees currently work for state government. He said he was told approximately 45,000. He then asked if Malloy’s budget passes how many fewer people will work for the state. He said he was told the budget assumes the loss of about 150 jobs. Those job losses are a result of the agency consolidations.
Cafero asked what will happen if through negotiations they don’t achieve $2 billion in cost-savings and concessions from the state employee unions. He says he was told “it will not be made up for in the revenue side, it will be made up for in the expenditure side.”
“I asked if there was any government service we currently have that was being privatized and the answer was ‘No, none,” Cafero said.
When he talked about shared sacrifice, Cafero said his caucus assumed that expenditures would come down and revenues would go up. However, he said what Malloy has shown them thus far is a budget that maintained spending, while revenues increased.
“I don’t think that was the expectation when we started this process,” Cafero said.
While Malloy is not proposing increasing operating expenses above the $17.95 billion current services budget, he is proposing increasing the special transportation fund to $1.75 billion bringing fiscal year 2012 budget to $19.7 billion. The budget increases in fiscal year 2013 to $20.20 billion.
“I’m very concerned about the direction we’re going,” Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, R-Fairfield, said.
He said Republicans and Democrats alike were told taxes would be a last resort.
“Are you telling me you’ve done everything?” Cafero said.
While Cafero understands it was important for Malloy to do this, he said he creates a $500 million surplus over two years in the general fund and $300 million in the special transportation fund.
“Now that begs this question. If you’re a taxpayer you might say, ‘How can you in these tough time leave $800 million on the table, yet raise my taxes $1.5 billion?’,” Cafero said. Or if you’re a union member you might wonder, “how can you ask me for $1 billion in concessions when you’re leaving $800 million on the table.”
Roy Occhiogrosso, Malloy’s senior adviser, and Barnes said the surplus funds set aside in the budget are to transition to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, and to decrease the state’s debt service.
In the first year of the budget Malloy will set aside $119.2 million and in the second year he will set aside $413.6 million. About $125 million of the surplus over the next two years will be dedicated to GAAP.
Asked if he’s receiving calls already about the $1.5 billion in tax increases, Cafero said “Madone! The phone’s ringing off-the-hook.”
Cafero said people are angry because they feel they didn’t get us into this mess, “You guys, government put us in this mess yet you want us to bail out.”
Democratic lawmakers have said over the past year or more that most of the deficit is attributed to the global economic crisis, but they’re less willing to take responsibility for the large structural budget holes even Malloy says they contributed to over the years.
McKinney said his constituents read about New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and wondered why Connecticut can’t cut spending and not increase taxes like those two governor’s have done.
Republicans lawmakers maintained that they want to work with Malloy, but “right now we’re not there,” Cafero said.
If Malloy needs some Republican support in order to get the budget over the finish line Cafero’s not “so sure we started at the right spot.”
Both Occhiogrosso and Barnes maintained that the state’s general fund budget decreases $4 million from the current year to the first year of Malloy‘s budget, which sets general fund spending at $17.95 billion.
In the second year of the budget spending will increase to $18.3 billion, or 2.3 percent. Those numbers don’t include the increases in the special transportation fund, which will increase 11.1 percent or $1.17 billion in the first year of the budget and $1.3 billion, an additional 2.4 percent, in the second year of the budget.
Tags: budget, Malloy, cafero, McKinney
(13) Comments
posted by: Ctkeith | February 15, 2011 7:29pm
Was this line put in as a joke?
“If Malloy needs some Republican support in order to get the budget over the finish line Cafero’s not “so sure we started at the right spot.”
Even Jodi Rell never got any help or votes from the sniveling dweep Republicans in the legislature.If Malloy balanced the budget with a 3.7 Billion gift from Bill Gates these clowns would whine like little schoolgirls having their hair pulled.Being useless is simply their nature
posted by: hawkeye | February 15, 2011 8:40pm
Ctkeith: Calling Republican Minority leader Lawrence Cafero a “sniveling dweep,” alerts readers about the credibility of your whining remarks!
posted by: City Hall Watch | February 15, 2011 9:36pm
So Malloy lied about flat funding the government and no employees will be laid off except those from consolidation. The budget increases and nothing has been done to shrink expenditures. This double talk and game playing with the numbers is dishonest at best. Don’t ask my family to sacrifice when this budget sacrifices nothing and maintaines everything. Truly pathetic.
posted by: Specter | February 16, 2011 8:26am
I personally want to thank all of the dimwits that elected Malloy. Would all of you care to pitch in and pay my increased taxes? No? Thought not…
But here we are back to business as usual in CT. Democrats continue to increase spending and want to balance the budget on the backs of citizens. A bunch of fiscally irresponsible legislators. Time to throw them all out and elect people who are actually qualified to deal with addition and subtraction. Remedial math classes required for Malloy and his cronies….
posted by: Ctkeith | February 16, 2011 8:55am
Dear hawkeye,
I apologize,to all the other sniveling dweebs in ct.
As for Whining I’d say all of you who are apoplectic because you’re going to have to pay a bit more in Taxes in order to get our states fiscal house in order are the real whiners.
PS- Maybe attorney and minority leader Cefaro will agree to a pay cut in his day job (in which he gets paid in taxpayer money to expel kids from school) in order to help our states fiscal situation.
posted by: hawkeye | February 16, 2011 3:49pm
Ctkeith&Specter;: Both of you express your journalistic refinements, with names like “dweebs” and “dimwits.”
Credit Specter for
using a word in the dictionary, but what is a “dweeb?”
posted by: ... | February 16, 2011 5:41pm
Well we can always go back to the Rell method: Deficit? What deficit? We have a surplus! We don’t hide our deficit. We don’t borrow and continue to make our state the most debt per person in the U.S. We don’t give up when push comes to shove on spending cuts.
And the Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines a dweeb as “an unattractive, insignificant, or inept person”. Which I don’t think Cafero is. He’s smart and knows that by the time this budget is voted upon, the cuts will still be higher than taxes, and more so than it is now.
posted by: Ctkeith | February 16, 2011 6:34pm
hawkeye,
Welcome to the 21st century.Try Google,you may find it broadens your horizons.
posted by: Specter | February 16, 2011 8:23pm
The thing is Jones…Rell may have proposed budgets…just a Malloy is doing. But the fact is that it is the out-of-control legislature that approves, allocates, and spends the money. The Governor really doesn’t have much control in all of it. When you have opposing parties in the executive and legislative branches they tend to work against each other. But when you have control of both branches held by one party - especially the party that show no fiscal responsibility - you get into a huge mess. At least Rell could’ve held up a possible veto of a budget she didn’t like. Malloy will work hand in hand with the legislature to bring about the ideal for DemoNcrats - TAX AND SPEND MORE…BIG Government for all. Watch it happen.
posted by: ... | February 16, 2011 10:26pm
I understand the concern Specter and considering how the last 10 years went, state and national, it is warranted.
But Malloy is going to fight for a budget that doesn’t rely on gimmicks or borrowing to keep us at current operating costs. He said he would veto any budget that doesn’t meet his goal. And to be honest this budget proposal is fairly weak considering they had a month to try and solve a 3.5 billion deifcit. The legislature now has 3.5 more months to do it, and you’ll see McKinney (possibly Cafero) in and out of his office probably equal if not more than Donovan/Williams/Looney.
And I do blame the legislature as well, since I sometimes get called out for being lop-sided on my criticism. Not all of them, but most, for failing to take this up before the recession or at any point. I know at least my Rep and Senator (each of a different party) voted against the budget because it wasn’t fiscally sound and solving our problems. Each branch chose to ignore it, but the legislature is a greater body of work that knew better.
I am confident Malloy is not going to treat the Democrats like a safety net for whatever he wants, and if anything look to Republicans to be in joint support with more moderate/conservative democrats.
posted by: hawkeye | February 16, 2011 11:18pm
Specter: Connecticut taxpayers will be paying for more than needed remedial math courses for Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and his players. We will all be paying through the nose, for the stupidity of voters, who elected this blind-bunch into power, on top of still having a bankruptcy driven Democratic Connecticut General Assembly intact. It’s like having the blind, leading the blind!
God help us all!
posted by: hawkeye | February 17, 2011 10:43am
JonessAC12: “EDIT, BEFORE SUBMIT!” Your contention that “Gov. Malloy is going to fight for a budget that doesn’t rely on gimmicks, or borrowing, to keep us at current operation costs,” is rediculous!
Have you looked at his proposed budget?
posted by: ... | February 17, 2011 1:17pm
Yes I have hawkeye, have you? I have my copy of the budget summary and economic report and have been reading up on them. The increases in the budget are coming from mostly the rising costs for energy usage by our fleet and offices. But I guess you hate the idea of actually solving our deficit with answers.
With all due respect hawkeye your comments are almost always without fact or serious insight into how our state works and how the budget policy/process is going to be laid out. Its generally ‘tolken quotes’ and the most basic political punch lines.
Also maybe before you try to attack me, you should edit before you submit a post. You failed to spell ‘ridiculous’ correctly.