Hartford, CT – Senate Republicans today renewed their call for swift legislative action to close the FY09 budget deficit and expressed frustration that, less than a week before the General Assembly is to act on a deficit mitigation plan, Majority Democrats have given no indication of what measures that plan will include. For weeks Senate Minority Leader John McKinney (R-Fairfield) and Senate Minority Leader Pro Tempore Len Fasano (R-North Haven) have warned that “the longer we wait to act, the bigger our deficit gets and the more difficult our decisions become.”
To illustrate that point, Senate Republicans unveiled a “deficit clock” to show the impact of the state’s growing budget deficit in real time. The clock, which can be viewed at www.senaterepublicans.ct.gov, calculates the rate of growth of the FY09 budget deficit on a second-by-second basis.
“Everyday the State of Connecticut is spending money we do not have and cannot afford to spend. And everyday our failure to act results in our deficit growing by more than $870,000,” said Senator Fasano.
“We had an opportunity to act on January 2nd by adopting the Governor’s deficit mitigation proposal and failed to do so. Senate Republicans presented another opportunity yesterday to reduce spending by streamlining our own branch of government. Our proposal to consolidate legislative committees would have saved more than $1.2 million. If we cannot take even that modest step toward reducing the size of our own branch of government, how are we balance this year’s budget and overcome the $6 billion in projected deficits for FY10-11,” said Senator McKinney. “In the last 15 years, state government has grown by 24% while our population has only grown by 2%. This level of growth is obviously unsustainable. We will have to shrink the size of government and restore some balance to this equation in order to overcome this budget crisis.”
Deficit Clock
- The Senate Republican deficit clock calculates the fiscal year (FY) 2009 estimated budget deficit;
- The FY 09 deficit, as determined by the Office of Fiscal Analysis on 11/24/08, is $320 million;
- This estimate accounts for legislative action taken on the first deficit mitigation plan;
- Connecticut’s estimated revenues for FY 09 are $16.627 billion while estimated expenditures are $16.947 billion;
- This means that, on a daily basis, Connecticut is spending $876,700 more than it is collecting.
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