Listeners Club

Forgot Password

Not a Member? Sign up here!

banner

Local Headlines

Local lawmaker leery of colleagues abilities to make difficult budget decisions

With little less than three weeks before the end of the legislative session, state lawmakers are scrambling to put together a budget for the coming fiscal year which erases a projected $922 million deficit. 

 

State Senator Tony Hwang, whose district includes Newtown, says the General Assembly needs to address long term structural change to how the state taxes and spends.  But Hwang says he's leery that with an election looming in November, lawmakers will push off those difficult decisions until after the election.  He called that a mistake, saying it would be a disservice to the people of Connecticut.

 

Redding Representative John Shaban calls the deficit crisis a mess derived form years of fiscal mismanagement, not from some “new economic reality.”  He adds that the way to dig out of this current financial crisis is through fiscal discipline in the years ahead. 

 

Shaban says talk is cheap, but funding schools, infrastructure and needed programs is not.  With the right policies he says the state may recover from the current self-inflicted crisis.

 

Hwang says bad fiscal policy dramatically and adversely impacts legislative policy.  He says all of the good things they've been working on when it comes to school safety, veterans affairs issues and education, have all taken a back seat to fixing the fiscal crisis.

On Air Now

Dave Rinelli

Local Headlines