“Republican lawmakers have squandered a real opportunity to offer better choices for balancing the state budget. Instead of proposing ways to generate needed revenue that would help close our state’s widening inequality gap, they’ve resorted to threatening to cut vital services and scapegoating middle-class workers. It’s a shame that leadership has abandoned their historic roots as the party of Lincoln, Roosevelt and Eisenhower and proposed decimating programs that their constituents depend on.
“Our union members and elected leaders have for the past four months united with our communities to advocate for alternatives to cutting, slashing or eliminating essential services. To continue our economic recovery, we need more, not less, support for PreK-12 and higher education, healthcare services, youth programs, environmental protections, and aid for local cities and towns.
“Just yesterday our union leadership urged the legislature’s Finance Committee to protect our state’s most vulnerable residents by adopting common-sense revenue enhancements. State lawmakers would be wise to ignore Republican leaderships’ proposals and instead consider our recommendations to put the common good ahead of personal interest.”
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AFT Connecticut is a labor federation of 29,000 teachers and school support staff, nurses and healthcare workers, higher education faculty and public service workers from more than 90 local unions throughout the state. Follow the union on Twitter at @AFTCT and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/aftct.
