After nearly 10 hours of debate, the Democratic-controlled House of Representative passed Gov. Dannel Malloy's budget just before midnight Tuesday after an extended clash between Republicans and Democrats over raising taxes.
All 52 Republicans voted against the budget, and they were joined by 15 fiscally conservative Democrats led by state Rep. Linda Schofield of Simsbury and others. Representatives Mary Fritz of Wallingford, Claire Janowski of Vernon, Ed Jutila of Niantic, Frank Nicastro of Bristol, Kim Fawcett of Fairfield and Steve Mikutel of Griswold were among the Democrats voting against the plan.
Malloy released a statement early Wednesday morning in which he thanked the top House Democratic leaders.
"As I said yesterday, I know it's a tough vote - it's also the right vote,'' he said. "This budget is balanced, honest, and contains none of the gimmicks that helped get us into this mess. It will provide the stability we need to foster much-needed job creation - which is everyone's top goal.''
Malloy continued, "Now it's up to my Administration to reach an agreement with our fellow state employees and to present it to the legislature for ratification. I remain hopeful that we'll get there. If we don't, I remain committed to presenting an alternative budget to the General Assembly in the next couple of weeks.
"Make no mistake: come July 1, Connecticut will have an honest, balanced budget in place. No smoke, no mirrors. A solid foundation for the future."
Some Democrats praised the budget as the first step in getting Connecticut back onto solid financial footing, but the Republicans charged that the legislature is forgetting about the average person living in Connecticut.
House Republican leader Larry Cafero of Norwalk told the tale of a local landscaper who told him that it costs $400 per week to power his lawnmowers that he needs to run his business. But the skyrocketing price of gasoline has recently pushed his fuel costs up by 40 percent, and he asked Cafero how he could possibly budget for that type of increase.
"What do I tell that landscaper buddy of mine?'' Cafero asked on the House floor. "Suck it up. I realize you have two kids in college. I realize that we're going to increase taxes on everything you buy. Is that what we're going to tell him, folks? Is that our judgement today? There's a bettter way.''
A Republican senator had said that the middle class was being taxed from head to toe, and Cafero phrased it a different way.
"When they go to buy clothes for their kids - pajamas, underwear, sneakers - now they have to pay [sales] taxes on that. It was zero. Now, it's 6.35 percent,'' Cafero said. "We're going to put tax on things you never paid taxes on before.''
But Malloy's senior adviser and chief spokesman, Roy Occhiogrosso, said that Cafero is "entertaining, but wrong'' in his analysis.
"The governor is asking everyone to make sacrifices and not asking any one group of people to bear a burden that he doesn't think they can bear,'' Occhiogrosso told reporters Tuesday in the Capitol press room. "He acknowledges that he's asking a lot of people, but also continues to point out that the alternative is one of two things: to go back to playing the financial games that got us into this mess or to go down the road with an alternative budget that would just shred the safety net and lay thousands of people off. He's aware of what he's asking people to do but thinks that it is not unfair given what people will get in return, which is stabilizing the state's finances and allowing the state to create jobs.''
Occhiogrosso added, "The governor believes that the tax structure that he is proposing ... will stabilize the state's finances, which will allow the private sector to make decisions they haven't been able to make because they're afraid the state is going to pull the rug out from under them.''
After the debate, top Democrats praised the vote.
House Speaker Christopher G. Donovan said, "This is a responsible, tough but honest budget that helps solve the budget crisis and moves Connecticut forward. What we passed today was a budget of fair, shared sacrifice. This budget closes our state's deficit and maintains important investments for jobs, education and the elderly.''
He added, "We have made significant spending reductions, consolidated 30 percent of our state agencies and maintained important investments that will help grow businesses and protect families. After three years of economic hardship, our state's finances are stabilized and Connecticut is moving forward on the road to economic recovery."
House Majority Leader Brendan Sharkey of Hamden said, "We are turning a corner, putting our fiscal deficits behind us and moving forward with the business of creating jobs and growing our state's economy. There is no borrowing, no one-time revenues, and no gimmicks.''
Sharkey added, "Unlike the budgets in New York and New Jersey, we are protecting funding to cities and towns. Schools, town services and local property taxes will not be impacted. We've made real deep cuts, reduced the debt, fully funded our pension obligations and restored the rainy day fund. Making tough decisions is what the people of Connecticut expect us to do."
The House debate Tuesday was essentially a continuation of the Senate debate Monday over the largest tax increase in state history. Malloy praised the 19 Senate Democrats who passed the budget shortly after 3 a.m. Tuesday in a tight, 19 to 17 vote with three Democrats voting against the plan.
Cafero said that Budget Day 2011 is his 19th at the state Capitol - giving him perspective on the single most important bill that the legislature debates each year.
Cafero mentioned the late state Rep. Richard Tulisano, a Rocky Hill attorney and Democratic legislator who has been described as brilliant by his former colleagues. Cafero recalled that Tulisano was fond of a quote from Edmund Burke that said "Your representative owes you not his industry, but his judgment.''
When Malloy was elected, Cafero said it was a new day in state government with a new governor and great expectations.
"All of us, myself included, wished him Godspeed and good health,'' Cafero told colleagues on the House floor at about 5 p.m. "We had this great expectation on January 5 that we were going to work together. ... There was no one clapping louder than this guy in this chair.''
But Cafero says that his high hopes were dashed sharply when Malloy and his budget team completely cut off the Republicans from substantive deliberations. The budget was a Democratic-written document, and the closed-door negotiations were conducted between the Office of Policy and Management and the Democratic leaders of the legislature's budget and tax committees.
"That's when my expectations were shattered,'' Cafero said. "I listened to what our governor said, and then I saw what he did.''
Rep. Livvy Floren, a Greenwich Republican who also represents a portion of Malloy's hometown of Stamford, said it was ironic that Malloy traveled around the state to 17 town hall meetings to learn what people were thinking, but "couldn't bother to walk across the aisle'' to obtain Republican ideas for the budget.
But Occhiogrosso said that Malloy "has made many compromises to make it a better product.''
Prompted by the global recession and a huge downdraft on Wall Street that only recently has partially recovered, the state was plunged into huge deficits. The Wall Street collapse started with the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers investment bank in mid-September 2008, and the stock market went cascading downward after that.
"How many people had to pull their kids out of college - mid-semester - because they couldn't afford the tuition any more?'' Cafero asked.
"You guys in government, what have you done to sacrifice?'' Cafero asked. "We didn't reduce spending. We increased it. ... Last year, we spent $19.3 billion. This year, it's $19.8 and next year, it's $20.2 Hello? We increased spending.''
"Isn't there some compromise before zero and $1.8 billion?'' Cafero asked. "What are we going to say to them? ... I implore you to think about what we are doing today. To close your eyes and think about the faces of the people you represent. That's who we represent, and they expect better judgement from what we are doing today.''
Cafero says they are losing sight of the people who are being impacted by Malloy's budget.
"What they're telling us is they just can't afford government any more,'' he said. "They keep paying and paying and paying.''
Rep. Gail Lavielle, a Wilton Republican who also represents a part of Cafero's hometown of Norwalk, sounded a similar theme.
"These people have sacrificed enough,'' she said. "This budget doesn't just hit people hard. It hits them hard when they're down!''
The Republicans offered their no-tax-increase budget as an amendment, which was defeated at about 9:20 p.m. Tuesday in a strictly party line vote by 97 to 52.
In another party line vote by the same count a few minutes later, the Democratic majority rejected a plan to restore the state's maximum $500 property tax credit. Under the latest plan, the maximum credit would be $300 for couples earning up to $100,000 per year. The credit would decrease above that level and would drop to $30 - one tenth of the maximum - for couples earning between $150,000 and $160,000 per year. Above $160,000, joint filers would receive no credit at all.
Democrats also defeated a Republican amendment to phase out the 3 percent rate in the state income tax in a vote at about 10:45 p.m. Tuesday.