On Thursday, April 21, I made the following statement opposing the proposed $1.5 billion of new taxes: "We are being asked to vote today for an historical increase in state taxes without knowing the significant other side of the budget deficit, namely, spending cuts.

I have been a member of the state legislatures in New York and Connecticut, and as a responsible member of the majority party, I have voted for tax increases in order to balance the budget but not when I have had practically no idea of what will happen on the spending side.

The Appropriations Committee has not yet provided us with a budget describing its spending cuts. The Governor has, perhaps understandably, not yet offered us any information about his negotiations to obtain large compensation concessions from our public employees. We are thus virtually ignorant on these two large components of the budget, state spending cuts and employee concessions.

If we vote today for this historical package of new taxes, we and our taxpayers will be continuing mistakenly to support, for example: longevity bonuses; payment out of public pensions at age fifty; lifetime health insurance for our public employees and their spouses when they have only eight or ten years of state service; mid-manager on top of mid-manager in a plethora of duplicating services in some of our state agencies; boondoggle programs such as Riverview Children's Hospital.

We need to get smarter about our spending.

Let me stress why it is so important this year to understand the spending side of our state budget. Our Office of Fiscal Analysis documents that in fiscal year 1990, our budget was $6.8 billion whereas our budget for the current fiscal year is $19.2 billion, a 280 percent increase but with an inflation increase over those years of only about 90 percent, all in a relatively flat state population. Thus, in the last 20 years, we have increased state spending by more than three times the rate of inflation. This budget history now requires our focus on responsible spending before we entertain an historical package of tax increases, particularly when we see that those tax increases are not with sunset restrictions.

Finally, we are voting on these large tax increases before knowing about current and projected state revenues which could substantially reduce our deficit and result in a smaller tax package.

For these reasons, I will be voting no on this tax bill.