HARTFORD, Conn. – Republican legislative leaders in the House and Senate unveiled an alternative budget that nonpartisan fiscal analysts say will slightly decrease the deficit in future years.
The Republican budget doesn’t eliminate the more than $939 million deficit in 2016, but it reduces it by $34 million. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s budget and the budget put forth by the legislature’s two budget writing committees increase the deficit in 2016 by about $130 million and $181 million, according to nonpartisan fiscal analysts.
But it’s unlikely the Republican budget will get very far. With no seat at the negotiating table, Republican legislative leaders are left to pitch their ideas to the public or any Democratic lawmaker who will listen.
In order to balance the budget, Republicans propose eliminating about $336.8 million of what they described as gimmicks in the Democratic budgets. They said one of those “gimmicks” is the $155 million in surplus funds Malloy wants to give back to taxpayers. Malloy proposed giving $55 checks to about 2.7 million taxpayers with surplus funds from this year’s budget. The legislature’s two budget writing committees kept the proposal in their budgets.
See the complete story at CT News Junkie.
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