Sen. Witkos’ Capitol Connection: We Have to Do Better

This month Connecticut passed a new state budget. It was the fourth time in the past year lawmakers had to again adjust a budget that was broken from the start.

I wish I could say that the changes made this time around mark the start of a new beginning for our state. But sadly, this budget does not go far enough to help our state change course.

I opposed this budget because it represents business as usual at the state Capitol. It lacks the long-term changes we need to put our state on a path to grow jobs and provide more for our families. It includes political favoritism through special interest handouts at the same time it cuts from the wrong places, including from education, hospitals, mental health care and social services for the most vulnerable including rape crisis and domestic violence shelters.

We can do better and we have to do better.

Everyone sees that our state is in trouble financially. Even those Democrats that have been blind to the growing problems over the past few years are now acknowledging what they call a ‘new economic reality.’ But we cannot accept this vision of a new normal. Throwing your hands up and acquiescing to failure as a reality is no way to lead our state. The reality I see is that over the past six years a cycle of raising taxes followed by growing deficits has driven our state into the ground. But instead of languishing in defeat, now is the time to pick ourselves up.

I was proud to join my fellow Republican lawmakers this year to propose a new path for our state in our alternative budget proposal. Our Republican alternative did not cut from the most vulnerable, it protected core functions of government, it found efficiencies, and it made significant policy changes to move our state forward. The Connecticut Republican vision is one of common sense. We recognized that building a budget starts with more than budget cuts. It also requires structural changes. Simply cutting something is not a structural change in and of itself. It’s just a reaction to not having money. A structural change is doing something that changes the way we do business. That means doing things like:

• implementing an enforceable spending cap;
• capping bonding to reduce future debt;
• creating overtime accountability protocols;
• requiring a legislative vote on union contracts instead of automatic approval;
• and approving municipal mandate relief; just to name a few.

Sadly, this time around the majority Democrats in control of the state legislature chose to ignore the Republican proposals and move forward with their own budget – a budget that all Republicans, and many Democrats, opposed.

I see their budget as more of the same old tactics to address the effects, but never the cause, of our state’s problems. But don’t just take my word for it. Less than two weeks after the passage of that budget, Wall Street weighed in with two of the four major rating agencies downgrading Connecticut’s credit ranking. A simultaneous downgrade by two agencies has never happened to Connecticut in the past 41 years – until now. That spells trouble, not just for this year, but for future generations who will have to pay down our debts as our interest rates go up.

It’s a scary predicament. It shows that this budget did not adjust the trajectory of the state of Connecticut. It shows why we need serious change.

To learn more about what’s in the Democrat plan that now heads to the governor’s desk for final approval, click here.

To learn about the alternative Republican plan and our ideas to create a more prosperous state, click here.

Sen. Witkos, Senate Minority Leader Pro Tempore, represents the 8th District towns of Avon, Barkhamsted, Canton, Colebrook, Granby, Hartland, Harwinton, New Hartford, Norfolk, Simsbury and Torrington. For more information visit senatorwitkos.com or www.facebook.com/senatorwitkos.

PHOTO ATTACHED: Sen. Witkos addresses members of the press prior to the Senate’s budget vote on May 12, 2016