Our local municipal leaders and boards must be commended for their extraordinary work in closing deep financial holes our=2 0towns have found themselves in. They have all been successful in passing balanced town budgets during this extreme economic downturn.  They rolled up their sleeves and faced the terrible hand they were dealt.
 
I wish I could report the same for our state government. Like her fellow chief executives at the local level, Governor Rell also faced the state fiscal crisis head on by making several rounds of spending rescissions, proposing five deficit mitigation plans to address the current year’s billion dollar shortfall, and putting on the table two difficult budget proposals to close the projected $8.7 billion deficit over the next two years without raising taxes.
 
In contrast, the legislature’s veto-proof major ity put forth a budget rife with $3.3 billion in new taxes. But when forced to vote on it in the senate, not a single legislator voted yes, not even those senators who had written the budget and spoken so highly of it in the press.