McKinney Calls for Deficit Mitigation Plan to Address Malloy Budget Deficit
November 9, 2012State Senate Minority Leader John McKinney (R-Fairfield) released the following statement in reaction to consensus revenue estimates released late today by the Office of Policy and Management and the Office of Fiscal Analysis:
“This is the fourth consecutive time revenue projections have been downgraded since the Malloy budget was adopted. This administration needs to recognize this trend and begin preparing for the worst. Their budget is broken and Connecticut has another fiscal crisis on its horizon.
“By law, the governor will be required to submit a deficit mitigation plan to the legislature if the Comptroller certifies this deficit on December 1st. But the governor shouldn’t wait until then to get started. We have a $205 million deficit in the current fiscal year and we face a structural deficit of hundreds-of-millions of dollars in 2014. Governor Malloy has a fiduciary responsibility to immediately and publicly explain how he intends to deal with this crisis.
“He says he has no intention of raising taxes and – given that he just imposed the largest tax increase in state history – I hope he will keep that commitment. But, I am skeptical. And I am concerned about his track record in dealing with past deficits – raiding the special transportation fund, breaking his GAAP promise, and borrowing to pay for operating expenses. And, don’t forget, he can’t get anything more out of state employee unions because he has signed a five-year no-layoff guarantee.
“The foundation of the Malloy budget has always been weak and the governor has exhausted every easy option and one-time gimmick he could think of to keep it afloat. Now we’ve got a real problem. And Governor Malloy needs to provide some real solutions for dealing with it.
“Finally, let’s not lose sight of the fact that under previous law, we would have had this information on October 15th – three weeks before the election. On the final day of the legislative session, the Democrats moved the date of this report in order to hide this bad news until after the election.”