Fiscal Foolery

With the largest tax increase in the State’s history, coupled with predicted significant cost savings by the state employees’ unions offering cost-saving suggestions and taking preventative medicine like quitting smoking and getting more physicals, how come the state is projecting a deficit of more than $275 million this year?  That is over a quarter of a billion dollars short!  That is how much the state has overspent this year - - spending more than $275 million than it has.

Oh, not to worry, says the State’s Budget man, OPM Secretary Ben Barnes – he suggests we can make this up by asking the General Assembly not to pay what it owes for 2009's shortage. We can just delay payment on the Economic Recovery Notes - the ones where the state borrowed $222 million to balance the budget that year. And what is all the fuss about, anyway. Barnes claimed we are doing better than last year because we didn’t lose as much money this year as we lost last year.  Barnes said “We made real progress in tackling the immense problems left on our doorstep long before we moved in.”

Right. 

That is like saying I didn't pay nearly as many bills this year as I didn't pay last year.

Governor Malloy told us last year that the huge tax increase he wanted, which  retroactively taxed us for half a year before his new budget would even come into effect, coupled with the huge concessions by the unions that he negotiated in accepting a preventative health care package, and savings resulting from employee suggestions -- these would put this state back in a good fiscal position. 

Well, ending the year $275 million in the hole is NOT a good fiscal position. 

AND even worse, the budget that Governor Malloy proposed just this past February for fiscal year 2013 - which included an increase in education spending – is in even more trouble.

You should not spend money you don’t have.

Let’s see if the General Assembly has any fiscal sense this time. They have spent most of their time in session this year passing laws on things we, the citizens, did not ask for or support – repeal of the death penalty, the magic bus line between New Britain and Hartford, same day voter registration; it would be nice if they considered cuts in spending, but then, it is an Election year and who among the incumbents wants to do the right thing.  “Re-elect me, and we will figure this out together – later.”