Reading material before Gov. Malloy unveils his budget proposal.
Eating their own: Here's what one of the Tea Party darlings had to say about Newotwn's disgraceful Republican State Rep. DebraLee Hovey laughable proposal to add a 10 precent tax to violent video games.
Put Hovey on the list of people to target for a primary. This is a ridiculous bill that will solve nothing. Its a back door attempt to get more tax revenue for the ever hungry and ever growing beast that is the Connecticut government. Hovey not only should be ashamed of this embarrassing piece of legislation, she ought to be run out of office. Using a slaughter of innocents to grab more taxes, absolutely disgusting.
When it comes to the NRA, it seems like Senator Chris Murphy could be correct.
Much has been made in recent weeks about the NRA's political strength, but PPP's newest national poll finds more voters consider their endorsement to be a negative than a positive. 39% say they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who had the NRA's support to just 26% who say they'd be more likely to, with 32% saying it wouldn't influence them one way or the other. Among independents 41% consider an NRA endorsement to be a turn off to 27% who say it's a plus.
CT Mirror's Keith Phaneuf has posted an article outlining the budget plan Governor Malloy will be presenting to the Connecticut General Assembly later today.
After reading the article, an experienced "Connecticut budget watcher" would be forced to say; "imagine the worst, fiscally irresponsible scenario and then triple or quadruple the negative aspects of the plan" ... and you still don't get to what Governor Malloy will be presenting for the upcoming Fiscal Year 2014-2015 state budget.
Much more will become available as the day goes on, but here are the highlights (or more accurately - low lights) of the Governor's budget proposal.
While promising a budget that has no new taxes, preserves his education reform program and dramatically expands spending in a few key areas, it is now clear that the Governor's plans and proposals are virtually completely achieved by adding even more debt to Connecticut - the state that already has the worst existing debt burden in the nation.
Not only does Malloy's $1.5 billion UConn initiative rely on borrowed funds, but he solves Connecticut's $1.2 billion projected budget short fall through a complex, even bizarre, borrowing scheme.
The plan increases spending by about 10 percent including new funding for education. As The Shad has asked before, how do you pay for it? It seems the budget includes some moves that Malloy railed against when he campaign for the top office back in 2010.
It extends certain taxes that were supposed to be "sunsetted" including the surcharge on corporate profits and the tax on electricity generators. Malloy does not see this as a tax increase. The proposal also delays payments on some debt and drops the earned income tax credit for the working poor from 30 percent to 25 percent.
The governor's plan also includes deep cuts to hospitals and changes eligibility for Medicaid.
As expected, Republicans in the legislature are howling, and with some good reason. The plan, as it stands, is $1 billion over the constitutionally mandated spending cap. The governor can get around that by charging the definition of the cap. It's certainly been done before.
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