In February, the Governor proposed a budget heavily reliant on borrowing and one-time revenues. In April, the Finance Committee missed its opportunity to fix these flaws. Instead, the Committee relies even more on dubious practices — borrowing more money, increasing one-shot revenues, and boosting estimates of how much revenue would be generated by proposals already in the Governor’s budget.
The result is an even more unsustainable budget. Unless the economy recovers quickly, we are at risk of slipping into deficit once again, as expected savings fail to materialize, one-shot revenues expire, and our debt burden continues to grow. There is another way. Connecticut can take steps to fix our antiquated revenue system so that it can support the high-quality public services our residents expect.
