Sen. Boucher: ‘Actions Speak Louder than Words’

Report by Paula Antolini
September 23, 2017 8:21PM EDT

 

Sen. Boucher: ‘Actions Speak Louder than Words’

September 21, 2017

It’s been nearly a week since the historic bipartisan budget vote in the legislature. The Governor has vowed to veto the budget, but said he is open to bipartisan budget negotiations. He and legislators also acknowledged the drastic education and municipal funding cuts that will take place under the October 1 executive order.

So, given the dire situation and looming deadline, you might think the Governor has spent his time in a room with Republican and Democrat legislators working toward a compromise. At the very least, he could meet with the Democrat defectors who very clearly said they need to see certain structural changes to vote for any budget. Those would be the responsible thing to do.

Instead, almost every day since the budget passed, the administration has called press conferences to declare that the Republican-proposed budget, which passed both chambers with bipartisan support, would mean the end of civilization as we know it.

It wasn’t until Wednesday, four days after the budget vote, that Senate Republican President Pro-Tempore Len Fasano received a request to meet with the Governor. Today, the Governor said he would meet with legislative leaders next week. This is only days before the October 1 deadline for distributing state aid to towns and schools.

The administration’s actions to date do not seem to match their words when talking about bipartisan cooperation and bipartisan budgets. And they seem to be perfectly content letting the oppressive cuts to state education and municipal funding go into effect.

The administration seems to think Connecticut taxpayers would rather take on additional billion-dollar tax increases and redistribution of state monies than live within the State’s means While we may not like painful cuts, we must responsibly fund our schools and municipalities without burying residents and businesses in crushing taxes.

You can help by asking this administration to sign the bipartisan budget by October 1.

You can do this by:

• Contacting the Governor’s office during business hours at 860-566-4840 or
• Email  [email protected]

Let’s make our voices too loud to ignore.

 

 

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