House Republican Press Release

April 30, 2004

Press Office: 860-240-8700

DelGobbo Votes No On Budget

Calls Budget Plan a Recipe for Disaster

State Rep. Kevin M. DelGobbo, R-70^th, Naugatuck, voted against legislation that increases the previously adopted state budget for the 2005 fiscal year and spends a surplus anticipated in the current fiscal year.

“It is unimaginable that after all the state has gone through, and after all the citizens have gone through,” said Rep. DelGobbo, “that this legislature would fail to learn the lessons of the past. We are creating yet another boom or bust cycle.”

“We haven’t even recorded an anticipated $200-million surplus,” Rep. DelGobbo said, “and we have already spent it. I believe the only way we can truly fulfill the needs of the citizens of this state, not only in this election year but every year, is to create a sustainable budget framework. This proposal does not achieve that.”

“It saddens me,” he added, “that this budget continues to use all kinds of fiscal gimmicks that have gotten us in trouble in the past. It literally borrows money that we’ve stolen from the public.” He was referring a new budget provision that allows the state treasurer to sell residents’ unclaimed or abandoned sooner than under previous law.

Rep. DelGobbo also criticized the legislature’s continuation of short-term tax increases that were scheduled to end on July 1. “This budget institutionalizes $1.2 billion in tax increase enacted last year, it provides no relief and makes what were supposed to be temporary tax increases permanent,” Rep. DelGobbo added.

“Clearly, we could have provided increased municipal aid without creating a long-term unsustainable budget framework, that will inevitably require new taxes,” said Rep. DelGobbo.

Prior to voting no on the budget adjustment bill, he supported several amendments that attempted to add more common sense to the budget, including providing increased municipal aid in a fiscally responsible way, starting to replenish the state’s Rainy Day Fund, reinstating a $500 property tax credit immediately and requiring the state to utilize performance based methodologies in the development of future budgets.

Rep. DelGobbo also objected to the budget for its:

• failure to put any of the surplus into the state Rainy Day Fund
• inflating the state spending cap by more than $100 million
• spending all the surplus and transferring $125 million in one-time surplus moneys just to fund next year’s fiscal expenses
• purposefully underfunding next year’s budget in many areas, and creating as much as a $500 million structural deficit heading into next year