Queen Jodi
Yesterday, Governor Rell vetoed the compromise budget passed by the House and Senate. Despite all your hard work for a fair budget, the fiscal year has ended with no budget in place.
Without a budget, Governor Rell gets to set funding for every program and service and department in the state by executive order – she doesn’t have to compromise with anyone.
Rell’s priorities are frighteningly out of whack: she’s already eliminating funding for public services that working families rely on, just to protect households earning over $500k and big corporations from having to pay a little bit more in taxes.
We’re starting to see what Rell’s vision of Connecticut looks like, and it isn’t pretty. We can’t let that happen. We can’t let Governor Rell balance the budget on the backs of hard working families and our state’s most vulnerable.
Please take a moment to email the legislature and ask them to send Rell another budget with a progressive income tax.
While the legislature’s tax proposal should be more progressive in order to raise more revenue and many harmful cuts remain , the legislature deserves credit for sending Rell a budget that staves off some of the worst cuts with a progressive income tax on the state’s top earners.
But apparently Governor Rell cares more getting her way than about reaching a budget agreement on time.
What does her way mean? Well, it means not even a nickel income tax increase from the richest residents in the state, while throwing some of our state’s most vulnerable out in the cold. She’s already eliminated funding for job training programs – when what we most need is to get people back to work.
She’s done away with funding for AIDS prevention and treatment. She’s slashing funding to community health services and family resource centers.
These aren’t threatened cuts anymore. These are real. They’re happening. And they don’t just hurt the most vulnerable — they waste our state’s opportunity to take advantage of Obama’s stimulus package, and they’ll slow down any economic recovery.
This isn’t the kind of Connecticut we want to live in. Tell the legislature to send Governor Rell another budget with fewer cuts and a more progressive income tax.
Here’s the link: http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/1306/t/4138/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=2834
Thanks for your help once again.
