The state Senate could vote as early as Friday night on a plan to cut the state’s growing budget deficit, but Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell is warning that the vote will be meaningless without a vote by the House of Representatives.
Insiders say that the House and Senate Democrats are sharply divided over the level of potential cuts – with the Senate Democrats pushing for more cuts and the more-liberal House Democrats refusing to make the cuts. Throughout the past year, some fiscally conservative Senate Democrats refused to vote on various tax increases – and no state income tax increases were approved until they reached the $1 million level for couples.
While no votes have been cast, some say this vote would mark the biggest break between the House and Senate Democrats over the past 18 months.
Senate Democrats are guaranteeing a vote on the deficit by the end of the month, but the date is not yet certain. With the Passover and Easter holidays coming up, lawmakers have been trying to work out the schedules. The state Capitol is closed next week on Good Friday.
In a letter to the top six legislative leaders, Rell talked about a plan circulating throughout the Capitol that “relies heavily on spending cuts” to reduce the deficit that has been projected as high as $500 million in the current fiscal year that ends on June 30. With some adjustments this week, Rell’s administration is projecting the deficit at about $350 million.
“While I very much appreciate and welcome the long-awaited attention to spending cuts, I am disheartened by the likelihood that the package will not, it is suggested, be taken up by the House,” Rell wrote. “It is being posited that the Senate will take up this package knowing that the House is not going to act on it and that a second, less cut-oriented consensus package will be then offered.”
Rell added, “I encourage and will work with you on the adoption of a meaningful deficit mitigation plan, such as the one I presented on March 1, 2010. Action that is knowingly meaningless serves no one. The Senate, the House and my administration must make real cuts and take real action to deal with the state deficit. Separate efforts, while cosmetically or politically pleasing, do not address but simply mask substantive failure. My administration continues to stand ready to work in a substantive, meaningful way, and I suggest that we begin with my March 1 deficit mitigation plan as a base.”
Read Gov. Rell’s full letter to legislative leaders here.
Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, a New Haven Democrat, told Capitol Watch in an interview Wednesday that the Senate could convene after 5 p.m. Friday – after various committees meet their mandatory deadlines for votes.
Senate President Pro Tem Donald Williams of Brooklyn said, “The General Assembly and Gov. Rell have an obligation to balance the budget. Gov. Rell is either unwilling or unable to convince legislators – even members of her own party – to support her budget mitigation plan. Republican legislators are focused exclusively on criticizing proposals from others, not offering solutions of their own.”
Williams added, “The current stalemate is unacceptable. Democrats must present an alternative and break the log jam. Gov. Rell could help. Unfortunately her letter to legislative leaders – delivered to the press first – is unproductive. Senate Democrats are working hard on finding solutions to the current budget crisis and will vote on a deficit mitigation plan that fully balances the current year deficit by the end of this month.”
House Speaker Christopher Donovan of Meriden said through a spokesman that the House leadership shared a working draft of a deficit-cutting plan with the Senate leadership during a meeting Wednesday. The two sides agreed to work further on the budget plan Thursday. Donovan had nothing further to say about Rell’s letter.
Williams rejected statements by insiders that Donovan had refused to sign an emergency certified bill, forcing the Senate Democrats to pull a bill off their calendar as the “vehicle” that would allow them to pass the deficit mitigation.
“No, we didn’t ask for an e-cert,” Williams told Capitol Watch.