Sen. Kane Votes For Legislation To Address State Budget Deficit For This Year

Senator Rob Kane (R-32) today voted in favor of legislation to address the state’s projected $350 million budget deficit for this year, but stressed that the General Assembly still has a great deal of work to do to resolve Connecticut’s ongoing fiscal problems.

“It has taken us a very long time to reach an agreement for significantly reducing this year’s budget deficit. Now we legislators must move quickly to build on this success and work together to adopt a responsible, balanced budget for the next fiscal year. Any new budget we adopt must avoid burdening the state with the $700 million deficit projected for Fiscal Year 2011 and the $3 billion deficit projected for Fiscal Year 2012,” said Senator Kane.

The State Senate today passed the deficit mitigation plan approved Tuesday by the House of Representatives. Senator Kane said he voted in favor of the plan because it significantly reduces the budget deficit projected for this fiscal year without raising taxes or reducing state aid to municipalities.

“I believe it is safe to say that no one likes everything in this deficit mitigation plan. Passing a plan that seriously reduces this year’s deficit meant making difficult decisions that simply could not please everybody. But the good news is that we managed to do it without raising taxes or cutting state funding for towns and cities. For here on out, the work of putting Connecticut back on a solid financial footing is only going to get harder,” said Senator Kane.

Senator Kane, a member of the General Assembly’s Appropriations Committee, said he continues to believe that the key to restoring prosperity to Connecticut is to restructure state government so that it is smaller and more affordable to taxpayers.

“Connecticut residents and businesses are already heavily taxed, and they simply cannot afford to continue paying for a state government that has grown too big and too expensive. It took the General Assembly much too long to pass legislation to seriously reduce this year’s budget deficit. For all of our sakes, I hope we manage to pass a budget for the fiscal year that begins on July 1st that allows us to avoid the massive deficits projected for the next couple of years,” said Senator Kane.