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Dems chide Rell for not targeting wealthy, Republicans
praise her for closing gap
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| By Keith M. Phaneuf,
Journal Inquirer |
February
10, 2005 |
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| HARTFORD -- Gov. M. Jodi Rell is receiving
mixed reviews on her $31.1 billion budget for the next two fiscal
years. |
Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday criticized the governor, a
Republican, for levying higher taxes against smokers while passing
over the wealthy. They also rapped Rell for recommending further
cuts to social services and proposing only modest growth in the
Education Cost Sharing grant.
Republican
legislators praised Rell for closing a huge budget gap and for
keeping spending growth under 4 percent in tough fiscal
times.
And while Rell challenged legislators in her first
budget address to live within taxpayers' means yet still make
children and the needy their top priorities, the popular governor
came under fire Wednesday for the first time from groups other than
her political opponents.
"The governor's budget raises a huge
fairness problem," Senate President Pro Tem Donald E. Williams Jr.,
D-Brooklyn, said shortly after Rell finished her 35-minute address
in the Hall of the House. "The governor's tax proposals are
regressive. They impact disproportionately on those who can least
afford them."
The governor wants to raise $340 million in
each of the next two fiscal years by increasing tobacco, alcohol,
and gasoline taxes and by deferring tax cuts in several other areas,
including the corporation and income taxes.
Democrats, who
hold big majorities in both the House and Senate, have endorsed
increasing income taxes on the wealthy and maintaining a temporary
increase in the inheritance tax on estates worth more than $1
million.
"I just think she's taxing the wrong people," House
Speaker James A. Amann, D-Milford, said.
But Senate Minority
Leader Louis C. DeLuca, R-Woodbury, said any budget proposed now,
with the state's economy still fragile, would be "a tough
sell.
"The governor understands that you have to control
spending, you have to respect the spending cap. The Democrats think
you can change that at will."
"It's a challenging budget that
was very straightforward," added Rep. Pamela Z. Sawyer, R-Bolton,
assistant House minority leader.
Sawyer said the $110 million
in additional municipal aid Rell proposed for 2005-06 was good to
see, especially as spending cuts, and not tax hikes, were used to
balance a majority of the governor's plan.
"It was an
aboveboard, no-smoke-and-mirrors approach to spending and taxes,"
she said.
Rell, whose budget office projects state finances
will run $1.2 billion in the red next fiscal year unless adjustments
are made, continued her call for fiscal restraint.
"Our
economy is still too fragile," she said in her budget address. "Too
many of our citizens are still without jobs and too many of our
businesses are still closing their doors."
Rell said that
while the budgeting process "unmasks our limitless potential, it
also reflects our limited ability to meet every need and to pay for
every program."
The governor did propose major new
initiatives in the Department of Children and Families, significant
rate hikes for nursing homes and other private-care providers, and
an expansion of the preschool readiness program. But she also chose
not to continue a health insurance program for working poor adults,
asked for new copayments for Medicaid patients and higher monthly
premiums for children's health insurance, and cut funding to
hospitals that treat the uninsured.
"That's a mistake, a
major mistake," said Rep. John W. Thompson, D-Manchester, one of the
legislature's leading advocates of the "Husky" insurance
program.
Addressing the largest pockets of residents living
below the federal poverty level should be the legislature's top
priority, he said, adding that research shows states that offer
health insurance to poor adults are more successful at getting
health services to children in these families.
Since taking
office July 1, Rell's popularity has soared with Connecticut voters
frustrated with the scandals of her predecessor, Gov. John G.
Rowland.
After making restoring trust in government her top
priority, Rell watched her approval rating hit a record-setting 83
percent in a recent poll from Quinnipiac University.
But Rell
-- who inherited a budget balanced plagued with fiscal gimmicks,
underfunded pension accounts, and a promised income-tax cut in 2006
despite limited job growth -- had predicted that criticism from the
outside would start once her first budget came out.
On
Wednesday, it began.
"We're very disappointed," with the
governor's social service recommendations, said Jane McNichol,
director of the Legal Assistance Resource Center of
Connecticut.
The end of Husky adults will set the overall
Husky program back and a Rell plan to end welfare and Medicaid
benefits for legal immigrants "is just silly," she added. "These are
still people with health care needs. They still pay taxes and are
part of society."
Ellen Scalettar, D-Woodbridge, one of the
leaders of the New Haven-based nonprofit Connecticut Voices for
Children, said she's glad Rell recognized the need for new revenue.
Still, she added, tobacco and alcohol tax increases "may provide
some immediate revenue, but it's not a solid base that will grow and
provide stability."
Scalettar's group was one of the first to
advocate for a higher state income-tax tier for wealthy
households.
Rell also sustained some criticism from the more
conservative Connecticut Business and Industry
Association.
Joseph Brennan, the CBIA's senior vice president
of public policy, said that while he understands the fiscal
challenges the governor faces, recommending a 15 percent corporation
tax surcharge for 2005 and a 10 percent surcharge in 2006 won't help
create jobs.
"The economy's very fragile and we're still a
high-cost state," he said. "Anything that adds to the cost of doing
business is a concern."
Rell's surcharge proposals are less
than the 20 percent and 25 percent in 2003 and 2004,
respectively.
"I did my best to cut spending, I really did.
And I did cut deep," Rell said. "But when all was said and done I
still needed to raise some taxes."
The governor went on to
chastise legislators for the gimmicks used to balance this fiscal
year's $14.3 billion budget.
"There were some decisions I
could have left to others, but that would have been the easy way
out," she said. "And the easy way out, frankly, is what has led, in
large part, to our current budget problems."
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| ©Journal
Inquirer 2005 |
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G W |
Feb, 11 2005 |
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No one would argue that tough
decisions had to be made this budget cycle, however, it's just
sad that Governor Rell can't make the tough decisions against
her rich cronies. This is eerily reminiscent of Former
Governor John (crook) Rowland. Rell is beginning to look like
a mirror image of the former Governor, soon to be inmate. I
guess his sentence answers the question of why favoritism is
so prevalent and desirable in poitics and why, despite huge
objections against cronyism and partiality, we can expect no
less of this unethical practice from Rell. Of course there is
no outcry from the rich smokers or drinkers about her lopsided
taxation, because they can afford to pay whatever cost is
imposed on those commodities. In fact, this is true of every
commodity, thus making this even more evident that these tax
methods are most desirable because they only affect the
poorest and most moderate of income citizens. How pathetic
that Rell is just another special interest lackey.
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