As lawmakers grapple with cuts in Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s budget, Connecticut Republican legislators issued their own spending plan, calling for wage freezes and reductions in state employee overtime to help bring back business tax credits and a variety of other programs the governor wants to curtail or eliminate.
GOP leaders, who don’t have a majority in either the House or Senate, said they would not cap corporate tax credits as Malloy has proposed to generate $111 million over the next two fiscal years.
The Republican budget would also not limit companies’ ability to use previous-year net operating losses to offset their tax liability. Malloy’s spending plan says that would generate $246 million over the next two fiscal years.
Finally, the GOP would eliminate the state’s 20 percent corporation tax surcharge, originally set to expire this summer, in fiscal year 2017. Malloy has proposed extending it indefinitely, which would generate $119 million in the next two fiscal years.
The minority party’s budget would restore a series of proposed cuts to Medicaid, indigent burial benefits, mental health providers, state parks, regional tourism districts, the Department of Children and Families, probate courts and other areas of the budget.
To pay for it, Republicans said they would implement a one-year wage freeze, reduce overtime funding, eliminate promised raises for the governor’s staff, reduce the managerial scope of the Board of Regents and consolidate state permanent commissions, among other measures.
Malloy spokesman Mark Bergman told CT News Junkie that the GOP proposal was a “false choice” because it would break legal agreements or lead to thousands of layoffs.
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