CT Budget news
The 2023 session of the CT legislature is underway. The most awaited legislation is the budget for the next biennium (following two years) and the impending state tax cuts. The budget process is underway, and here are key elements.
State Budget process: The state budget follows a multi-step process. First, the Governor puts forward his budget to the legislature in February. Second, the appropriations and finance committee review, debate, amend and pass the budget in committee. Finally, the entire legislature debates and votes on the budget bill (in June).
Proposed tax cuts in the Governor's budget: Earlier this week, Governor Lamont proposed a budget of around $25 billion per year. It includes three tax cuts.
1. Lowers tax rate for households under $20,000 per year from 3% to 2% and those under $100,000 from 5% to 4.5%. However, taxpayers who pay the bulk of the state income taxes will see little relief.
2. Increases Earned Income tax credit by 33% - Households who make below $60,000 are eligible for earned income tax credit from the Federal and State governments. The Governor has proposed increasing the state credit from $2000 to $2600 for family of four.
3. Restore Connecticut's pass-through entity tax credit to its original, revenue-neutral level of 93% and enable small business owners in the state to save money by claiming a larger credit on their personal returns.
While the Governor's budget allocates most of the tax cuts to households making below $100,000 a year, most residents prefer a broad tax cut for all taxpayers. Click HERE to see the survey results of over 3000 residents on what kind of income tax cut they prefer.
Spending changes in the proposed budget: Most programs continue to be funded with small increments to past years. There is $50 MM per year in additional funding for pre-K programs and $300 MM per year in new capital spending for the workforce and affordable housing. For reference, the major spending items in our $25 billion state budget are: $8 billion for Husky or Medicaid program, $3 billion for K-12 education in the form of grants to school boards in various towns, $3.5 billion for catchup pension payments, $3.5 billion for servicing state debt.
Most budget surplus is being used for catchup payments to underfunded pensions: Our state revenues have grown in the past few years, partly from real growth and partly due to inflation. Most of the budget surplus, about $2.5 billion per year on average, has been directed to the state and teachers' pension funds which face significant shortfalls. While that is generally a good thing, the state pension fund has had poor returns and high fees over the last few years, which needs to be addressed.
Click HERE for the 69-page presentation and HERE for the full text of the 311-page budget proposed by the Governor this week.
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News
Connecticut Democrats Target Parents and Election Integrity:
- Exempt Public School Teachers From FOIA Requests Pertaining to Conversations with Children on Sexual Orientation, Gender, Race, Etc.
- Allow Teachers to Teach Sensitive Topics without Parental Input
- Excluding Parents Input who Disagree with Teachers
- Connecticut Democrats have already proposed to allow Non-Citizen Voting and Incarcerated Felons Voting.
- New proposed state law would institute "Mandatory Voting"
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