Zupkus Opposes Majority Party Budget

HARTFORD — State Rep. Lezlye Zupkus early today voted against a two-year budget from Democrats that relies on an “unprecedented” accounting gimmick to stay below the Constitutional Spending Cap while delaying the governor’s often-promised move to more transparent accounting principles, also raiding transportation funds and generating new revenue from the introduction of Keno gambling and a 16 percent gas tax hike this summer.

Zupkus, a member of the Commerce Committee, said the house-of-cards budget will keep Connecticut on uncertain fiscal ground for the foreseeable future. The plan passed along party lines in a 5:15 a.m. vote, continuing an unfortunate trend that has the state’s most important issues decided while residents are asleep.

What should be most concerning to residents, Zupkus said, is the majority party’s flippant, politics-driven decision to shift $6 billion in Medicaid spending outside the spending cap. Because spending on health care for the poor would be outside of the budget, Democrats contend their two-year plan is $37.6 billion rather than a cap-busting $44 billion. Democrat leaders recently abandoned earlier budget plans and pursued that accounting shift, labeled “unprecedented” in media reports, because they didn’t have enough in-house support to exceed the cap according to rules created when it was approved in 1990 as a companion to the controversial state income tax.

“Rank-and-file Democrats rightly feared backlash at home if they exceeded the cap, so their leaders simply changed the rules for them,” Zupkus said. “They’ve plotted a new course, and taxpayers should be worried about the likelihood that the legislature will be working on these same problems two years from now—only worse.”

To balance their plan, Democrats swept $90 million in transportation-related money into the general fund and, in a surprise move, did the same with energy conservation funds created in legislation only hours earlier. They targeted many other specialized accounts in one-shot budget balancing maneuvers, including $25 million from the banking fund, $12 million from the tobacco and health trust fund, and this year’s entire $220 million surplus.

“This budget is clear evidence that Connecticut’s legislature is run by folks unwilling to make hard choices needed to shepherd our state toward economic stability,” Zupkus said. “They continue to spend money as if it’s being printed beneath the Capitol building, and it’s clear that they’re more than willing to try every budget gimmick they can think of. Introducing a new form of gambling on an 11th hour whim? That’s unacceptable.”

The budget plan from Democrats delays by two years the governor’s promise to switch to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, a more transparent method of accounting that assigns government expenses and revenues to the year in which they are incurred. If that method was used today, state finances would be in deep deficit.

In addition to refinancing $1 billion in operating debt, the budget also cancels nearly $400 million in payments over the next two years—pushing off the payments until after the next gubernatorial election.

The budget controversially extends a surcharge on corporate profits that the businesses had expected to expire.