Lawmakers prepare budget vote
Legislators set late Monday decision on tax cuts, spending plans in two-year, $51.1B plan
State legislators were preparing to vote late Monday night on a two-year, $51.1 billion budget that provides the largest state income tax cut in Connecticut history and funds hundreds of programs across the state.
Lawmakers and lobbyists were still pouring through the massive, 832-page document that has another 258 pages of analysis by nonpartisan legislative employees to explain various provisions.
The bill includes Gov. Ned Lamont’s signature income tax cut that he has touted for months to help the middle class. The 5% rate would be reduced to 4.5%, which represents a 10% rate cut. The current 3% rate would be reduced to 2%, which amounts to a 33% cut in the amount of taxes paid. The rate cuts would show up automatically in paychecks, rather than having taxpayers fill out any forms or applications.
In an effort to target the tax cut at the middle class, single individuals earning more than $150,000 per year and couples earning more than $300,000 per year would receive no income tax cuts. Overall, 1 million tax filers — or 60% — would benefit.
Joint filers earning $100,000 would save $594 per year — the highest dollar amount under the proposal.
The tax cuts would start on January 1, 2024, later than Republicans had suggested.
“This budget will deliver the largest personal income tax cut in the state’s history,” Lamont said. “This is not a temporary tax cut. It is designed to be sustainable for years to come. … We are also making historic investments in K-12 education and housing – opening
ing of April 10. They have found no trace of her and the police have found no evidence of foul play.
Kirk and Pattie’s daughter Murphy Murad, who lives in Singapore, flew to Japan on May 24 to meet with a fourth wave of search and rescue specialists from the U.S. In the meantime, a Japanese search and rescue team had been looking for Wu-murad since mid-april when the Murads arrived in the country.
After five days of searching, the family decided to stop “due to the underwhelming amount of evidence found,” Murphy wrote on their Gofundme page, which raised $200,725 to fund search and rescue teams and the family’s travel to Japan. Murphy wrote that the page will no longer accept donations after June 10, which marks two months after her mother’s disappearance.
“Typhoon season is coming,” Kirk said. “We had a five-day window where we knew it wouldn’t be too much rain. We knew we had to do it or we’d have to wait for October.
“It was most of the same people. They coordinated their efforts with the Mountain Works (search and rescue) folks in Japan. Filled in gaps, looked in drainage areas that hadn’t been searched yet, just did a thorough job, just so we could say we looked left, right, sideways, under, over.”
The Japanese search and rescue team told the Murads they would continue to search voluntarily when they could.
“They’re really committed,” Murad said. The Murads are still trying to get data from Wu-murad’s cell phone, which so far they’ve been unable to do. According to Murphy’s post, “the telecommunication companies have said they are unable to track Patricia’s E-sim because it is not a Japanese number.”
“There’s got to be something,” Murad said. “Cell phones are always searching out the nearest tower even if you’re not using your phone. If her phone was on, up until the battery died, there should be a tower that we can reference and we could pinpoint the search a little bit more.”
Murad said he’s coming home from Singapore in “a couple of weeks,” as is his daughter.
“I never thought I’d come home without (Pattie),” he said. “I just thought we’d find her.
“Getting on a plane to come home to Connecticut is not going to be a fun trip.”
Wu-murad, 60, was retired from United Technologies and was an experienced hiker who had traveled all over the world. She had been in Japan for over a month and was set to hike the Kumano Kodo trail in a mountainous area of central Japan. The hostel owner walked outside with her and pointed her to the trailhead, which was about a quarter-mile from the hostel where she had stayed the night before, and that was the last time anyone reported seeing her.
Murad had spoken to his wife the week before and she told him she might be out of touch for a few days because she was in a remote area, so he wasn’t worried when he didn’t hear from her for 3-4 days. He got a call from the U.S. Embassy on April 14 telling him she was missing, and the local police had been looking for her and he immediately rushed to Japan with Murphy and son Bryce.
“It’s so heartbreaking and frustrating we’ve done all this, we’ve had the best people on it, we’ve had the best technology and there’s not a clue,” Murad said. “There’s no one thing that says, ‘Yeah, she’s definitely in this area.’ There’s no one thing that says, ‘Yeah, she definitely fell or she definitely took a wrong turn or she definitely was abducted.’
“There’s nothing. We have no idea.”
Murphy thanked the family’s supporters in her update.
“The amount of work we were able to accomplish would not have been possible without the unwavering support of our family, friends, community and the remarkable individuals we encountered in Totsukawa,” Murphy wrote.
Then, addressing her missing mother, she wrote: “All these people came together because of the profound influence you have had on our family and the impact you have had on so many different people around the world. … Thank you for instilling in us the strength and resilience to keep moving forward each and every day without you by our side. … We love you Mama.”