They’ve had enough of Connecticut budget games

The following commentary appeared in the (Meriden) Record-Journal, on Oct. 4:

For Connecticut residents, it's a depressingly familiar refrain: Hope appears on the horizon that some kind of budget deal will be worked out, then hopes are dashed and it's back to the drawing board.

That happened, once again, just the other day. To be up front about the situation, chances were already pretty slim (perhaps closer to slim to none) that Republicans would be able to override the veto of their budget by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, but it's perhaps an indication of how frustrating proceedings have become that even a slim chance of success breeds hope.

One of the aspects of failure residents appear to be increasingly frustrat- ed with – if not outright angry about – is the way these failures appear inevitably to result in partisan bickering. An example of recent squabbling: "Given the opportunity to discuss, defend, and vote for a veto override on their budget, the Republican Party decided to take a pass." – Democratic House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, DBerlin.

"Right now, there is no alternative that is out there that can garner a majority of support in this building. We have a budget that can do that. They don't like it – I get that." – Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven.

This time, returning to square one might actually be worse than square one.

Malloy said the other day the legisla- ture would need to adopt a budget by Oct. 13 – it's hard to see that as a likely scenario at this point – to prevent the partisan impasse from stretching into December.

Increasingly impatient municipalities deserve better than this, as do all residents of Connecticut.

State Rep. Vincent Candelora, a Republican who represents a part of Wallingford, remarked that Democrats had "a lack of understanding of what our budget does and what is in our budget."

If that is the situation, it's a clear sign of what is going wrong in Hartford.

"... if we all take our political parties off our sleeves, we can get to a budget," said Aresimowicz.

That's the way to break the impasse. It's time for action.