Rell Vetoes Democrats’

Deficit Bills

By Susan Haigh Associated Press

HARTFORD — Governor M. Jodi Rell on Monday vetoed two deficit-cutting bills passed last week by Democratic lawmakers, claiming they fall far short of what is needed to balance the state’s lopsided budget.

The Republican governor’s two vetoes are the latest salvos fired in a contentious, yearlong battle with the Democrats over how to deal with the steady drop in state revenues. While the Democrats are not expected to attempt an override — both bills did not pass by a large enough majority — the leaders must now decide whether to regroup and pass another deficit-cutting plan before the regular legislative session opens in February.

Rell, meanwhile, said she plans to submit legislation that will expand her ability to make spending cuts, claiming the General Assembly’s majority Democrats refuse to “confront the reality of Connecticut’s financial crisis” and cut state spending.

“The Democrats want to move money around from one account to another and one fiscal year to another in the vain hope that increased taxes will fill the holes left behind,” Rell said in a written statement. “Homeowners and employers in Connecticut are not able to balance their checkbooks this way and they will not stand for lawmakers trying to do so.”

The first year of the state’s two-year, $37.6 billion budget is currently estimated to be at least $337 million in deficit.

Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said he was surprised and disappointed by Rell’s decision to nix the two bills and accused her of protecting the wealthy. Besides replenishing funding that Rell suggested cutting for social service programs, such as daycare for low- and moderate-income families, one of the Democrats’ deficit bills postponed a planned reduction in the state’s inheritance tax.

The Democrats ignored Rell’s deficit-cutting package, proposed earlier this month, in favor of the one they passed last Monday.