For Some, Rell’s Speech Offers Few Budget Solutions, Big Ideas
by Christine Stuart | Feb 3, 2010 3:38pm
(8) Comments | Commenting has expired
Posted to: State Budget, State Capitol
(Updated) Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s farewell budget address didn’t include any big policy ideas or solutions to the $3 billion budget deficit that the next governor and legislature will inherit.
That’s what both Democrats and Republicans said following Rell’s speech Wednesday on revisions to the $18.91 billion budget.
Rell announced in November that she won’t be seeking re-election in 2010, so Wednesday’s speech was her last annual address to a joint session of the General Assembly.
House Majority Leader Denise Merrill, D-Mansfield, said she heard the governor present some options, but she didn’t hear any real arguments for fixing the structural budget deficit.
“I’m disappointed the commission won’t get going until the end of 2010,” Tom Foley, the Greenwich businessman seeking the Republican nomination for governor, said. “I would have liked her to set a goal to take $1 billion out of the budget.”
Rell proposed the creation of a 24-member Twenty-First Century commission to examine government, achieve efficiencies, eliminate waste and reduce the size and cost of state government.
The commission will include members from all three branches of government and its work will need to be reviewed and completed by Dec. 1, 2010, about one month before the next new governor is sworn into office in January 2011.
“I intend to do everything in my power in my remaining months in office to make the changes that are needed to break insatiable spending habits and to make state government affordable once again,” Rell said. “It would not be fair to my successor – or yours – to simply ignore the fiscal problems that we have today and that we all know lie just ahead.”
Rep. Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, said the commission is an important and necessary mechanism to help the legislature focus and make changes to the structural budget deficit.
Simsbury First Selectwoman Mary Glassman, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, said the governor put the state on “autopilot.” She said she expected to come to the Capitol today and hear about how Connecticut is going to solve its long term budget problems.
Connecticut is facing a $515 million budget deficit this fiscal year and a $3 billion deficit next fiscal year. Rell’s revised budget includes no tax increases and less than $30 million in spending cuts. The rest of the budget is balanced with anticipated $365.6 million in federal stimulus funds, the delay of a $100 million payment to the state employee’s pension fund, and the establishment of Keno, a lottery-type game, to raise $20 million.
Using a football analogy former Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy, said the governor’s speech was “one of the finest punts he’s ever seen.”
Ned Lamont, the frontrunner in the governor’s race, said “it was a missed opportunity to give people the sense that we’ve going to solve this budget crisis.”
But Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele, another candidate seeking the Republican nomination for governor, said there were some good first steps made in Rell’s speech about job creation and cutting government spending. He also liked the chord she struck in trying to get the Democrat-controlled legislature to be part of the solution and work with the Republican administration.
Sen. Eileen Daily, D-Westbrook, said Rell had a real opportunity to put forward a bold proposal and she didn’t. “She’s not running again, why couldn’t she do the right thing?” Daily wondered.
Echoing President Barack Obama’s remarks last week, Rell said “We need to stop the game-playing and name-calling and constant bickering that has come to consume too many at the Capitol.”
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agreed.
“The partisanship colored everything we did last year,“ Sen. Minority Leader John McKinney, R-Fairfield, said. “Almost everything we did was partisan.”
“Our priorities is jobs, the governor’s priorities is jobs. That’s a great start,” House Speaker Chris Donovan, D-Meriden, said regarding the common ground in Rell’s speech.
“There were some points of contention, but I don’t want to squabble,” Merrill said. She said a lot of the job creation ideas presented by Rell Wednesday are things both sides can agree on.
Merrill said she likes the idea Rell has for reauthorizing bond funds to help small businesses, but it’s a mixed bag because as governor Rell has control of the bond commission agenda.
“The governor’s call for more civility at the Capitol is something everyone can embrace,” Sen. President Donald Williams and Sen. Majority Leader Martin Looney, said in a statement Wednesday evening. “Last year at this time there was widespread disagreement over the size of the deficit – Gov. Rell underestimated it by more than $2.5 billion. This year we begin with consensus on the size of the deficit and a renewed commitment to working together to help solve it.”
Rep. John Geragosian, D-New Britain, said the fact that Rell cut less than $30 million from the budget should be a “realization that despite political rhetoric it’s difficult to achieve cuts.”
To read more about Rell’s proposals click here or here.
(8) Comments
posted by: Tmarsh | February 3, 2010 7:47pm
I didn’t anything new, and I’m skeptical about the value of another blue ribbon commission. Last year David Osborne addressed the legislature…good idea, except as usual, no follow through. As a municipal leader I am very concerned about there being real committment by the executive branch or the legislature. Talk about punting.
posted by: lothar | February 3, 2010 8:03pm
What a wonderful rant, city hall watch. I’m sure folks would appreciate your insights on this simple budget problem. It’s as easy as cut cut cut, right? So then what do we do with the 5,000-10,000 new faces in the unemployment line? Those folks cost money as well, and lots of it. It just seems like so-called fiscal conservatives are fairly clueless about the repercussions of cutting state jobs. Either that or they don’t care, as long as they keep their own cosy lifestyle.
The budget crisis is going to require both spending cuts and new revenue, and then some. There’s no way to get around it. God forbid anyone adds a little bit more taxation on the wealthiest people and corporations in Connecticut. God forbid we think about the cost of putting people out of work.
Rant all you want, but when you target only Democrats it’s pretty obvious that you’re not looking at the problem from anything but a partisan position. Republicans are just as guilty in this mess. There’s no possible way to cut our way out of this and that’s all they’ve proposed so far.
Let’s not be so transparently partisan that no one will listen to what you’ve got to say when/if you propose a solution.
posted by: City Hall Watch | February 3, 2010 9:17pm
Lothar:
I’m a Dem and I watch how we exclude the Republicans from the coffee clatches; I watch how all we do is piddle and blame while we control the Legislature. How much has spending increased since 2002? Billions. You’re wrong if you think we can’t cut, we can and we should. You want to raise taxes - this crowd raised a history making record amount of new taxes last year and the budget was still out of balance from Day 1. I don’t have all the answers. But what I know is that we are taxed and fee’d to death in this state and have damn little to show for it. We lost 100K jobs in the last recession and it took a decade to get them back. We’ve now lost another 100K at least; a bunch more are underemployed or taking huge pay cuts to stay in employed while nothing happens at the state or local level to trim state spending. These so called leaders are well paid to solve problems, It’s past time for them to quit acting like uneducated, ill bred children who do nothing but talk and blame, talk and blame. If any of these people want to be in higher office, they need to be part of the solution and start leading this pitiful group of legislators who can’t seem to find their way out of the LOB. Enough already.
posted by: CT Jim | February 3, 2010 9:45pm
Once again City is just sooo dilusional.
Lets face it the executive branch controls the agenda and the legislative branch at best can stop some of the truly stupid stuff.
For 20 LONG years now the executive branch in the state of CT has been run by the republicans.
During that time time we have gone from the most prosperous state to just below Alabama.
Our Debt has gone from one of the lowest per capita to THE highest.
Most people outside of CT call us corrupticut based on the current administration and her mentor before her.
City is venting because this chapter in history seems to be closing and
barring some sort of teabagging miracle or an out right stealing ala 2000 presidential election we will see a Democratic governor who won’t spend unless its paid for which means the truly wealthy who have been using CT as their own tax haven will have to pony up.
Keep whining City it’s amusing and we could all use a laugh during the Bush depression.
posted by: main street | February 5, 2010 2:11pm
Where are we going to get the 18 million blumenthal jost cost us in a civil suit? You know, the 18 million none of the liberal reporters in new haven reported on.
http://www.courant.com/news/breaking/hc-computer-lawsuit-0130.artjan30,0,1070680.story
posted by: Matt W. | February 5, 2010 4:12pm
Yes and once again CT Jim regales us with tails of the poor little Dems who have controlled the legislature for 26 of the last 30 yrs but just don’t have enough power. It’s not their fault. I’m sure they’re doing everything they can to save the state from the big bad governor.
It’s very much like the national scene. It’s not the legislature’s fault that healthcare failed. Obama just didn’t want it enough. As the “agenda setter” he must have just decided against it. Truly Awesome.
So answer this: If the Dems, with all their power, can’t do anything against a republican governor as incompetent as Rell then why wouldn’t the Dems simply abandon the legislature and focus all their collective political power on capturing what is clearly the holy grail of CT politics? Why even bother with the legislature? It’s powerless. Right?
posted by: CT Jim | February 6, 2010 9:19am
Thanks Matt,
Great suggestion!
With the house and the senate with a cushion it is time to take the Governors Mansion!!!
which by the looks of the Republican ticket shouldnt be all that difficult.
Health care nationally now is dead? Really??
Come on Matty fess up who in the white house told you that??
It aint dead Matty its the feeling of the white house and rightfully so that what good is health care if you dont have enough money to eat, so its jobs jobs jobs.
But health care will get done this year regaurdless what you teabaggers want.
speaking of teabaggers I was watching their so called convention last night LOL
And i thought this was some sort of GIANT movement??
I have seen more people attend a local Kwannis club meeting LMAO!
posted by: City Hall Watch | February 3, 2010 5:18pm
It’s time to call out all the two bit, phoney baloney, good time rock and roll do nothing, tax everything, small idea, flacid responding politians in this story.
Denise “No Budget Fixes” Merrill - You’ve been in the state legislature for years. You have voted for every spending and tax increase since you got there. You have fought every effort to reign in the spending and instead of cutting state government last year, you voted to saddle us with a billion in new debt that simply paid bills. WHAT’S YOUR PLAN? WHAT WILL YOU CUT? HOW WILL YOU BALANCE THIS BUDGET?
Mary “autopilot” Glassman -Where’s your plan? What will you specifically cut? Name them. Add them up. Get $500 million for this year and at least $400 million for next year. Where are you getting it? By suppporting more tax increases on the sale of our homes like you’ve supported in the past? Or maybe by increasing the sales tax on homes of people losing them?
Dan “finest punt” Malloy - I’ve heard nothing but criticism out of you. Where’s your plan? This is your second time around. Give us the list. You too supported the sales tax on our homes. Do you want it to go up?
Ned “missed opportunity” Lamont - what’s the plan, Ned? When will you sit down with the mooks who run this show in the legislature and nail down what can be done? They haven’t done diddly even though they knew six months ago the budget was out of balance. Are they going to borrow another billion a few months from now?
I’m angry and I’m tired of watching do nothing, know nothing, blame everybody else for a budget problem that nobody is willing to fix but nearly everybody running for office had a lot to do with creating. Forget the lip service. Forget talking about job creation as if any of you know anything about it (Lamont excluded); and come up with what will balance this budget NOW!
We need rock solid, thoughtful, reasoned and actionable budget plans. You claim you want to lead. Now would be the time to show what you got. Substance or just lips flapping in the wind?