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Connecticut's budget deficit, and why you should be worried,
A Three Part Series
by Connecticut Mirror budget reporter Keith Phaneuf
A 3 Part Series
As the smoke cleared Wednesday on the 2013 General Assembly session, Malloy was left trying to put the best face on a new two-year spending plan riddled with controversial choices.
Thursday, less than 24 hours after the end of the 2013 legislative session, the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis issued a report that Connecticut was last – 50th – in the nation in economic growth.
- Expiring taxes would be extended and new limits placed on tax credits, costing taxpayers an extra $220 million over the biennium.
- With Connecticut headed for a 4-cents-per-gallon gasoline tax hike July 1 -- the result of a law passed eight years ago -- the new budget siphons all of the $120 million collected at the pumps over two years out of the transportation system and into the general fund.
- That’s just one of about $550 million worth of fund raids, account sweeps and other one-time gimmicks like amnesty for tax delinquents used to balance the new plan -- leaving a serious deficit after the 2014 election.
- It took a new interpretation of Medicaid spending that shifted more than $6 billion off the books to bring the budget under the spending cap.
- And Connecticut will borrow -- rather than gradually collect through savings -- about two-thirds of the $1.2 billion it needs to complete its GAAP conversion.
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