The administration of Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy started early Wednesday -- more than 90 minutes before Malloy's momentous state budget message to the General Assembly scheduled at noon -- to try to sell its idea of a "shared sacrifice" tax-and-spending plan designed to erase a projected $3.7 billion for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
"The context of this budget, as we all know, is a deficit," Malloy's budget director, Ben Barnes, told reporters, lobbyists and other observers at the traditional budget-day briefing that started about 10:15 a.m. in the big Appropriations Committee hearing room in the Legislative Office Building in Hartford.
"We are doing this in a way that shares the sacrifice," said Barnes, whose official title is secretary of the state Office of Policy and Management. He said it will include, "cuts in spending, concessions from state employees, and tax increases -- and overall there are more spending cuts than tax increases."
The major features of the budget had already been rolled out in a series of announcements by Malloy and his top lieutenants over recent days -- and Wednesday morning's briefing filled in some details, and featured a long talk and slide presentation by Barnes.
Although the budget proposal includes $2 billion in cuts in its "current services" component, it also calls for $1.5 billlion in first-year tax increases, including hikes in the income, sales, gasoline, cigarette, and alcohol taxes. It also assumes $1 billion a year, for the next two years, in savings from state employee unions that must still be negotiated. Officials have been careful to use the phrase "savings'' because all of the savings might not be from concessions.
For example, the two sides have not even started talking about concessions on salaries and benefits. Instead, they have been talking about ideas for savings that the state employees' unions have proposed.
Asked at Wednesday's briefing if the administration has an alternate plan to account for the possibility that it can't win $1 billion in annual savings from the state employees, Barnes answered only in general language -- but it still sounded blunt: "The spending reductions that the governor has proposed, we intend to accomplish."
Despite much talk about cuts, the proposed all-funds budget will actually increase by 2.4 percent in the first year and another 2.4 percent in the second year -- growing from the current level of $19.28 billion annually to $20.2 billion by the end of the second year.
Among new budget features that Barnes touched on Wednesday morning is a job-creation program called "First Five" -- which would give tax and economic development incentives to the first five companies that create 200 or more new full-time jobs within two years, or somewhat longer if there is "significant capital investment" of at least $25 million. The purpose of it, he said, is "to begin to create a better job-creation climate in the state."
Already, a number of citizens, media commentators and legislative Republicans have criticized the budget proposal heavily for increasing taxes so much. The proposed tax increases would affect anyone who earns a middle-class salary, smokes cigarettes, drinks beer, drives a car, takes yoga lessons, buys non-prescription drugs, gets a haircut or receives a manicure.
Malloy had said Tuesday, "Everybody's going to be upset; that is a certain reality.''
He added: "Nobody wants more taxes. I don't want more taxes. There's no easy decision. ... That's why I've been very clear for a long time that this was about shared sacrifice.''