HARTFORD – State Senator Cathy Osten (D-Sprague) led Senate Democrats this evening in the final passage of a modified second year of the two-year state budget that will bring Connecticut’s 3.5 million residents a half-billion dollars in tax savings while investing hundreds of millions of other dollars in new childcare, mental health, social service, job creation and other new state programs.
After a three and a half hour debate, the budget was passed by a vote of 24-12; the bill now heads to Governor Ned Lamont for his signature of the bill into law.
“Last year’s biennial state budget, which was approved on a bipartisan basis, laid the groundwork to make transformative investments in our cities and towns, in education and in healthcare – and with this budget tonight we continue to maintain those investments and to build upon them,” said Sen. Osten, who as Senate Chair of the Appropriations Committee helped write this year’s state budget. “And we’ve done all of this with an underlying core philosophy of not repeating the financial mistakes of the past and acting to ensure our long-term fiscal stability. This is a great budget for the people of Connecticut.”
With an influx of federal aid, and with Connecticut tax revenues soaring due to a rebounding state economy, strong job growth and rising incomes, the second year of the biennial state budget was reconfigured by Democrats and the governor to increase state spending in the coming year by 6.5% to $24.2 billion.
The budget includes historic tax cuts for Connecticut’s citizens as well as major new investments in some of the human needs that were highlighted by the past two years of the deadly and disruptive COVID-19 pandemic.
The Democratic budget is still under the state-mandated spending cap, has maxed out our state Rainy Day Fund at $3.3 billion, and makes a massive, unprecedented $3.5 billion payment toward Connecticut’s 70 years of built-up pension debt.
Some of the $600 million in Democratic tax cuts that will help Connecticut residents include:
On the spending side, Democrats make major investments in the public services Connecticut residents demanded following two years of the deadly and disruptive COVID-19 pandemic: the mental health crisis impacting our children, expanded services for people with substance-use disorders, better wages for people working in our non-profits and as personal care attendants, increased funds to support survivors of domestic violence, more money for community college tuition, job-training programs, and a historic investment in child care services so parents can get back into the workplace.
Some of the hundreds of millions of new dollars that Democrats are spending on Connecticut residents include:
To view more details and analysis of the Democratic budget, please visit: https://cga.ct.gov/asp/cgabillstatus/cgabillstatus.asp?selBillType=Bill&which_year=2022&bill_num=5506
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