With a huge budget deficit looming on the horizon, the candidates for governor are debating over whether the state needs to raise any taxes to close the projected deficit of more than $3 billion in the next fiscal year.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley is ruling out an increase in the sales tax or any other taxes - saying that the budget gap can be closed through spending cuts alone.
Democrat Dannel Malloy, his spokesman says, would consider tax increases only as a last resort - after first creating jobs, cutting state spending, and streamlining state government.
"The notion that you can get out of this without considering revenue - nobody believes that,'' said Roy Occhiogrosso, Malloy's chief strategist. "Dan believes in progressive taxation. It's a basic difference between the two.''
Malloy has not made any specific proposals about raising taxes, other than to say that various options would need to be considered.
The Democratic-controlled legislature's finance committee, however, is expected to consider whether the sales tax and other taxes need to be raised next year to close the gap. But House Speaker Christopher Donovan said Friday that the finance committee analyzes the tax structure every year in an effort to strike the right balance regarding taxation. He said it is too early to make any predictions about potential tax increases in the 2012 fiscal year.
"When we have state Democrats and federal Democrats working together, we balance our budget. We'll do it again,'' Donovan said. "We did it for fiscal years 9, 10, and 11.''