Savvy Republicans will support Lamont’s budget
Republicans can do business with Gov. Ned Lamont. The Greenwich Democrat’s budget proposal gives the shrinking ranks of Republicans in the state legislature an opportunity to shape state policy and protect taxpayers. They will not see another moment like this one.
The governor unveiled his
$46 billion budget for the next two years on Feb. 10. The only sustained criticism of it came from Lamont’s left. The Never Enough wing of Democrats stuck to their song sheets and claimed
Lamont’s budget does not spend and tax enough.
With only 53 of the 151 members of the House of Representatives and 12 of the Senate’s 36, the Republicans possess no power on their own to make the changes some of them might want. Lamont’s budget is the best they are going to do. The can be most effective by working to stop changes.
The Republicans should agree to vote to pass Lamont’s budget now and with a couple of conditions. Expanding gaming and legalizing the recreational use of marijuana will require standalone votes, and Lamont should understand that voting for the budget does not obligate anyone to support those broad policy changes. That should not trouble Lamont.
The other condition may be more difficult for the governor to adopt. The budget must begin to implement the property tax credit program that Lamont proposed in his 2018 campaign. There were billions in looming state budget deficits when Lamont unveiled his plan in the summer of 2018. That plan revealed Lamont’s conviction that high property taxes were a menace to life in the state. “Businesses won’t come to a state where their employees can’t afford to live. Young people won’t build a future in a state where they can’t afford to own a home,” Lamont declared. “And longtime residents won’t retire where they can’t afford to remain.”
Lamont’s diagnosis was accompanied by a plan to restore a
meaningful property tax credit that would benefit at least two million state residents, according to his own analysis. The Lamont tax plan will take several years to implement. The first year costs about $165 million. Republicans and the governor working together should be able to find that. There are always employee suggestion boxes.
We and the governor are the beneficiaries of the 2017 bipartisan budget agreement that was shaped in large part by Republicans when they had many more seats in both chambers of the General Assembly. Without that budget and the restraints on spending it imposed, Lamont would not have billions in reserve funds to balance his proposal.
Republicans will do no better for Connecticut than to support Lamont’s budget proposal. In addition to the few suggested changes, they will want some specific assurances that the governor’s assumption on the amount of federal aid and how it can be spent are realistic. Lamont ought to have no trouble providing those. It’s a new era, so the businessman would not have tossed in figures to make it all balance if he was coming up short at the end.
Republicans in the legislature have new leaders. This is their moment to punch above their weight. The governor should be able to persuade 23 House Democrats and six in the Senate to adopt his budget quickly. Success will demonstrate the power of bipartisanship, The governor will be free to concentrate on the pandemic instead of dismantling his budget by negotiating only with Democrats. Republicans will not face spring taunts to produce their own budgets. They will brandish the one Lamont proposed and declare they that in this perilous hour they dropped party orthodoxy to assist the governor and the people of Connecticut.
If the Republicans make the offer and Lamont declines it or is unable to muster enough Democratic votes, we will know that partisan allegiances, whatever the cost, are more important than sound public policy.
The governor and Republicans will disappoint some of their own partisans by reaching an agreement to pass his proposed budget. The governor will need to instruct prickly mouthpiece Max Reiss, who less than two years ago was a television reporter covering Lamont, to cease his partisan abuse. The Republicans will need to cooperate in passing the legislation that implements the budget. This will require some extended fortitude. Let’s find out if they possess it.
Kevin Rennie is a lawyer and a former Republican state legislator. He can be reached at kfrennie@yahoo.com.