Politics & Government

Republicans Urge Residents to Speak Up About Budget Disapproval

Sen. L. Scott Frantz and State Reps Livvy Floren and Michael Molgano held a town hall in Stamford Monday night to discuss the state budget they say will only cause more financial instability.

Fairfield County residents gathered at Ferguson Library’s  in Stamford Monday night for a Town Hall meeting with Republican members of the State Senate and House of Representatives to ask questions and express their concerns about the $40.1 billion biennium spending plan, which was  last week. The sentiment among attendees that chose to speak appeared to be the same: now is not the time to raise taxes.

State Representatives Livvy Floren (R-149) and Michael Molgano (R-144) joined State Senator L. Scott Frantz (R-36), who began the meeting with a quick rundown of the current fiscal situation in Connecticut.

Frantz explained that while state spending has grown over the years, the population growth has remained stagnant, thus, leading to a smaller tax base. "If you don't have a population that is getting wealthier and an economy that's healthy, then your tax base shrinks, even if you have higher numbers in terms of population," he said.

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Combined with statistics showing that the number of state employees has grown over the years, while the number of employees in the private sector has maintained a lower rate of growth overall, Frantz said that the state government continues to spend money that it doesn't have, while asking residents to continue to pay high taxes.

"[The state] would have to hire an excess of an equivalent of two people to fill a job in a normal [non-government] career [to equal that of a government position] and the pensions and health benefits that go along with that, etc. etc. — it becomes very expensive," he said. "By private sector standards, I don't see a company lasting very long if they were hiring at those levels."

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Floren stressed that residents are about to face the largest tax increase in history and that everything from hotel rooms and cigarettes to alcohol and real estate sales will be affected. She also shared that the House Republicans' request to discuss making changes to the proposed budget to avoid tax increases, or at least make them temporary, were dismissed by Democrats.

"If we are raising all taxes because we need revenue to balance the budget and get on stable footing going forward, why can’t we tell people that once we the recovery has occurred that we will sunset these taxes?" Floren said. "They said, 'No way.'"

The three then discussed the Republicans' proposed $36.4 billion "No Tax Increase" budget that they said would have put a cap on the petroleum gross receipts tax, retained the property tax credit and reduced the state's governmnt workforce by 5 percent.

After the presentation, Stamford resident Lutz Spika, the owner of Greenwich-based Pickwick Plumbing & Heating, expressed his concerns over the impact the budget could possibly have on his business.

"I saw they wanted to increase corporate taxes," he said. "Now, what's to say that, if they keep increasing taxes, that — and we're on the New York border as well as the Massachusetts border — customers won't say, 'To heck with it' and just move their business across state lines?"

When another attendee questioned what kind of impact residents could really have on the debate, Floren assured him that a lot more could still be done.

"It's a unique position because, before, the majority of Democrats would say, 'Oh, it's the governor's fault' and vice versa, but now there's ownership," she said.


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