This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
01/13/2010 11:00 PMThe month of December hasn't been much different from the past two years in Hartford. Last week, the General Assembly convened to pass yet another deficit mitigation plan. Connecticut faces an approximate $513 million deficit for this fiscal year. The majority party rejected the governor's plan almost entirely. Rather than make any attempts to cut, its plan largely constituted more tax increases and less than 15 percent of the plan contained actual cuts. The plan took $76 million of revenue from our 2011 budget and moved it into 2010. It took additional "lapses" in accounts that have already been taken. In addition, the plan still left a hole of more than $100 million.
You may have begun to see the finger pointing. The Democratic leaders are claiming that the governor is overspending in the budget and causing these deficits. Don't believe it. The governor is merely administering a budget that the Democrats passed back in September. The governor refused to sign that budget and noted that it was full of fake cuts and unachieveable savings. Rather than take
responsibility for this bad budget, they are now trying to blame the governor for this failed proposal. In the end, taxpayers of Connecticut are going to pay dearly.
Regardless of who's to blame, the longer the legislature fails to do its job and balance a budget, Connecticut residents are
going to be strapped with higher taxes. This latest deficit mitigation plan, which I voted against, primarily constituted estate tax increases. I fear that this plan is a precursor to the Democrat's future plans. If the tax increases haven't hit you yet, congratulations, but I assure you they will be coming for all of us.
Sometimes Hartford feels like a fishbowl. You swim with the same group of people and eventually they all start believing that the outside world is just like that fishbowl. It's
important for legislators to talk to their constituents and get different perspectives so that we don't lose our common sense. This week, our House minority leader, Larry Cafero, announced that he wouldn't be running for governor. In that announcement, he talked about five commonsense principles that the Republican Party is committing to. They seem simple, but merit repeating. They are:
1. Spend no more than you make
2. Borrow only what you can afford to pay back
3. If it's not broken, don't fix it, but if it's not working, get rid of it
4. The more government tries to do, the less it does well, and
5. We should have only the government we need.
Some of these principles we apply in our personal life. It would behoove legislators to apply these principles to our budget process, as well. We cannot continue to tax, borrow, and move money around to get out of this recession. Bernie Madoff was jailed for the Ponzi scheme he set up to defraud his clients. The most recent actions of our legislature should be met with equal levels of disgust from the public. If Ponzi schemes are
illegal for the private sector, they should be for government, too.
State representative Vincent Candelora represents North Branford, East Haven, and Wallingford in the General Assembly.