To The Editor:

Connecticut passed another bad budget on Friday the 13th, an appropriate day to do something scary to taxpayers and residents. I know this kind of "closed door" budgeting scares me.

As the rest of the nation is working through a slow economic recovery, Connecticut has been left be-hind. How can this be? Historically, this state has prospered because people and employers wanted to be here. We were "business-friendly" and companies chose to locate or expand here, providing near full-employment, a strong financial base, and state budgets that generally balanced.

Fast-forward to today. Years of prosperity led to cronyism, waste, unchecked spending, and abuse. We now spend more than we take in and have resorted to borrowing and financial deception to hide the imbalance in our budgets. The majority party has reversed our fortunes, making Connecticut now the place people and employers flee. Hartford Democrats wantonly disregard the principles of living within our means and not borrowing more than we can repay. With their insatiable appetite for our tax dollars, we're circling the economic drain.

Connecticut passed the tax tipping point at least two record-Democrat-imposed tax increases ago, leading us to the unsustainable place we find ourselves today. Despite higher taxes, revenues are drop-ping like a rock. The governor calls this our "new economic reality" but really, we've simply reached the point where he can no longer hide the financial mess he and his budget-writers created. Yet, these leaders can't figure out why the state is broke.

We can do better. My Republican colleagues and I built a balanced budget, a five-year plan that protects core services without raising taxes. Unlike the Democrat budget, our plan protects funding for education, municipal aid, mental health, and services for the developmentally disabled. We proposed serious, structural budget changes to get Connecticut back on-track. Too bad we weren't afforded a seat at the table.

In Friday's budget debate, we introduced amendments to affect structural budget changes, including mandatory legislative approval of union contracts, gradual reductions in bonding, spending cap ac-countability, and more. Despite obvious merits, all were rejected by the majority party.

Permanent structural changes leading to smaller state government and lower taxes are critical to sav-ing Connecticut and reversing the outward migration of people, jobs and revenue. The old ways don't work anymore. This state is a $20-billion business that must relearn accountability, think lean, and be willing to evolve.

Legislative Democrats proudly declared their budget cut spending. Unfortunately, their many one-time sweeps won't create permanent change. Our five-year plan will. Their deepest cuts again came at the expense of society's most vulnerable, slicing $7 million from mental health grants, $30 million from hospitals, and $1.7 million from substance abuse services.

I voted against this budget. I cannot and won't be party to the Democrats' refusal to enact real structural changes and plan ahead. Their Friday the 13th budget is a ruse to get us through the next election, after which, if left in the majority, I suspect they will raise taxes once again.

Mitch Bolinsky

State Representative, House District 106

Newtown, Conn. May 18, 2016