Legislative Democrats Avoid Responsibility to Govern

Hartford- The Connecticut State Legislature met briefly in special session today to satisfy a call made by Governor Jodi Rell to deal with the mounting budget deficit. State Representative William Hamzy (R- Plymouth, Bristol) expressed frustration that the super-majority Democrats refused to take action.

“Today’s lack of action by the Democrats proves once again they are not prepared to lead Connecticut out of this economic crisis,” Hamzy stated. “The budget deficit is not a new problem; today’s special session didn’t catch any of us off guard. The comptroller has been telling us for over a month that we have a massive budget deficit and the Governor gave the legislature nearly three weeks to prepare for today’s session. There is no reason we could not have taken action today. The Governor has a plan, the Republicans have a plan but where is the Democrats plan? All we have from them are gimmicks, half-baked ideas and rhetoric. It’s time to step up to the plate and take some action.  There are no easy decisions to be made nor does anyone feel good about doing what needs to be done.  But, by ignoring reality and pretending it will go away does nothing but make these problems worse.  I have compared the Democrats’ actions over the last two years to the movie Ground Hog Day.  Every time they need to make a decision to solve these problems, they tell the people of this state to wait until next week or next month or next year.”

Before Thanksgiving, Governor Jodi Rell set December 15^th as the date for a special session to vote on her deficit mitigation plan. Earlier this month, legislative Republicans released their own plan to mitigate the budget deficit. Meanwhile, Democrats held a press conference yesterday to say they would meet today in a technical session only and would get to a mitigation plan at an undetermined date. The most recent estimates put the budget deficit at approximately $466 million.

“Let’s not forget that this is the Democrats’ own budget. They wrote it and they voted for it,” stated Hamzy. “Now, as we predicted, the budget is way out of balance but the Republicans are the only ones that seem willing to fix it. Something is wrong with this picture.”

The current state budget was passed at the beginning of September after the longest budget battle in state history. Not a single legislative Republican voted in favor of the budget and it went into law without the Governor’s signature. Less than a month later, State Comptroller Nancy Wyman (D) was projecting massive budget deficits.

“If the Democrats aren’t ready to lead then I think they should get out of the way. We came in today ready to work, ready to get a compromise together and ready to get Connecticut back on the road to recovery.  The super-majority Democrats refused and the state will continue to plummet into deeper deficit. It really is a shame that Connecticut’s residents are the ones that will ultimately have to pay for the Democrats’ irresponsible ‘governing’.”