Weicker Says State Leaders Need “Steel Up The Spine”

Former Governor Lowell Weicker was at the UConn Law School today to speak about health care reform, just as Governor Jodi Rell and the state legislature were in the final hours of a legislative session with a still unresolved budget.

“Somebody asked me, when I came on campus, wouldn’t you like to be governor….Helloooo????”

Listen to our story tonight during All Things Considered, or listen online now.

Rell’s Budget, The Morning After

The governor’s budget would defer a state trooper training class, cut funding for a needle and syringe exchange program, and get rid of the Capital City Economic Development Authority that oversees state development in Hartford.  (CCEDA will get folded into OPM, now that most of the city’s major development projects are either done or in progress.)

That’s all according to a report of the legislature’s non-partisan Office of Fiscal Analysis that’s just been released.  There are lots of other cuts and additions and things to read about in the report.  Have fun:  OFA SUMMARY.

Wyman: Deficit Grows to $515 million

State Comptroller Nancy Wyman came out with new budget numbers Monday — increasing the projected size of the state’s budget deficit.  It’s now looks like it will be $515 million for this year, a figure that has state legislators and the governor scratching their heads, but not setting their hair on fire.

That, we’re told, will come next year when they all start talking seriously about the several billions of dollars in projected deficits.

Here’s our story as it aired Monday evening.