Rell Plays To Voters In Budget Tug-Of-War

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Gov. Jodi Rell has just proven she's an equal opportunity employer. Her new budget presented in February stunned members of her own Republican Party in the legislature because it called for raising income taxes to fund large increases in state education aid to local communities.

The GOP legislators in the General Assembly were outraged at the idea of tax increases from the Republican governor the people of the state had just elected by a huge margin three months earlier. What was Jodi Rell thinking of?

But her opponents for governor, Democratic Mayors John DeStefano Jr. in New Haven and Dannel Malloy in Stamford enthusiastically greeted the news. They said Rell had shown courage by addressing simultaneously the long-standing issues of enhanced state aid for education and property tax reform. So did a lot of Democratic legislators.

Not to worry, Republicans. Rell has now reversed the fortunes of the partisans. She surprised Democrats by coupling the education funding increase with a means to limit local property taxes. She said that she wants a state law providing that local property taxes cannot be increased more than 3 percent a year unless there is a grand list increase exceeding 1.5 percent, exclusive of a revaluation.

Full article: http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=c0cacc0a-1cf8-49f7-ad06-03eafbda6961