State Representative Tony D’Amelio and House Republicans once again offered real savings to eliminate the state’s $466 million deficit by real spending cuts this evening after Democrats, for the fifth time in 13 months, once again avoided dealing with Connecticut’s flowing red ink and instead opted for more tax hikes and borrowing for operating expenses.

The alternative Republican deficit mitigation plan has no tax hikes and eliminated the entire deficit built into the Democratic budget just two months after it was passed with no Republican votes. The Democrat’s plan included a $77 million tax hike to settle estates and a one-time state employee pension fund grab for another $100 million. Overall, the Democrats reduced spending by just $12 million with $5 million of that coming from the fund that underwrites political campaigns.

“Here we are in another special session, and it doesn’t look like the majority party has learned anything from the last four times we did this,” said Rep. D’Amelio.“Eventually they will have to come to terms with the fact that we can’t borrow anymore, we can’t tax anymore, and we can’t procrastinate anymore.There needs to be a fundamental change in the way we do business and that starts with making difficult choices and reducing spending.”

Republicans restored critical funding for endangered programs such as the Licensed Professional Nurse courses at community colleges and eliminated the Citizens Election Fund altogether. Cafero said the Republican plan to reduce spending in most state accounts by 7.8 percent was the best approach because most critical programs were retained.

D’Amelio noted that the majority has just raised taxes by $1.5 billion and borrowed billions more to pay for operating costs. “Now they have voted to borrow more for operating costs from the state employee pension fund while taking another $77 million from estates,” D’Amelio said said. “The only way to properly address this deficit is to make cuts.”