Presenting his two year, $46 billion state budget proposal, Gov. Ned Lamont said the crisis that has defined his governorship over the past year, COVID-19, continues to play a major role in the government's fiscal planning.
In his virtual address, he said the pandemic has been a further economic drag on a state that already faced an uphill climb: "The Connecticut budget is still burdened with high fixed costs accumulated over the decades, and these costs plus a COVID economy result in deficit projections in each of the next two years."
Tackling the virus and the related economic crisis are major focuses of Lamont's budget. He says part of the plan is to lend a hand to communities that are having trouble paying their bills: "The past year has been an exceptional challenge to our cities and towns. There isn’t a single mayor who in 2019 budgeted for a pandemic in 2020, and they are struggling to build this new reality into an already tight budget for 2021 and beyond."
His plan sets aside $100 million in aid for 25 distressed cities and towns.
The budget features a "mileage-based fee" to be levied on large trucks. The governor says tractor-trailers create most of the damage on the state's crumbling roads.
Senate Republican Leader Kevin Kelly is critical of what he calls a "tax on trucks" and the wider budget plan itself. "What we see here is a, I'm going use the term loosely, 'budget,'" said Kelly, "because it is not, in my opinion, responsible. The governor did not do the job that he's required to under the Constitution, by providing a balanced budget where you can identify, and point to, exact revenue streams."
