Carpino: CT Budget Picture Alarming

HARTFORD- State Rep. Christie Carpino on Thursday slammed the governor’s office for downplaying the severity of the state’s financial problems.

Carpino received a report from the non-partisan fiscal office of the state, OFA, that projects a nearly $145 million budget deficit. This budget news comes one week after Governor Malloy’s budget chief said the state would finish with a surplus of $83 million.
Carpino expressed frustration at the Governor’s office for not sharing critical budget information with the Appropriations Committee and for not being more diligent about tracking the alleged saving thus far.

“I didn’t support this budget because it carried both massive tax hikes and spent more money than ever before,” Carpino said. “The governor, meanwhile, sold it to residents as a cure all to Connecticut’s fiscal problems. He talked about savings and consolidations. But now, everyone is learning that his plan isn’t working—that relying on taxes just hasn’t produced enough revenue to support the governor’s spending increases. Remember while taxes were raised on everything under the sun by $1.4 billion over the next two years yet the state increased spending by nearly a billion dollars even after the administration saying they would reduce the size of government.”

“The budget was sold as a cure all to our state fiscal mess. Due to its massive tax hikes and only modest spending reductions, I could not support it. In fact, by relying on mostly taxes to balance the budget it turns out the revenue just is not there. We have lower than expected income tax and capital gain receipts coming into the state which has pushed our budget into the red,” said Carpino.

“This is unacceptable and irresponsible,” added Carpino.