Connecticut Weicker Goes His Own Way

By TOM CURRY

In Connecticut, Fourth of July celebrations began with all the pizazz of a damp firecracker. As dawn broke over Hammonasset Beach State Park last Tuesday, rangers routed campers out of their tents and ordered them to leave. In Hartford a few hours later, agencies ranging from the department of banking to the board of pardons failed to open their doors as 20,000 state employees began an indefinite furlough.

| For some campers, the holiday disruption caused by the state's fiscal crisis turned out to be mercifully brief. Three Connecticut companies chipped in $43,000 to keep Hammonasset and two other state beaches open through the weekend. But how soon state employees will return to work depends on how quickly Governor Lowell Weicker can hammer out his differences with the legislature over his plan to create a state income tax.

Imposing income taxes in a state that has shunned them for more than two centuries would be a daunting political challenge for any Governor. It is especially difficult for Weicker because he has so few cards to play. One of two Governors elected last November as independents (the other is Walter Hickel of Alaska), Weicker does not have many allies among either the Democrats who control the legislature or the Republicans from whose ranks he defected last year.

All sides agree that Connecticut must raise more revenues. The state is faced with a $2.7 billion deficit in its $7.8 billion budget, proportionately the largest of any state's. With no income tax, Connecticut relies on an 8% sales tax on such consumer durables as cars, television sets and furniture -- exactly the sort of products consumers stop buying in an economic slowdown. When the current recession hit last summer, state revenues declined.

There is little disagreement on the need to curb spending. Though Connecticut's population grew only 5.8% during the past decade, outlays for government programs more than doubled. State funding helped boost the pay of Connecticut teachers 53% in the 1980s, giving them average salaries of $40,496, second highest in the nation. The state created new programs for the mentally handicapped and embarked on a costly prison-building program.

To Weicker, who earned a reputation as a stubborn and short-tempered maverick during three terms in the U.S. Senate, the solution was obvious: cut the sales levy and impose a 6% income tax. Addressing the legislature in February, Weicker argued that without tax reform, "our Connecticut, as we envision it, would slip away." But the lack of party ties that made it possible for Weicker to conceive a tax that neither Democrats nor Republicans would propose doomed the idea. With no partisan motive for aiding Weicker, the leaders of both parties helped defeat his plan last month.

Then, having run out of alternatives as the July 1 deadline for approving a budget neared, the lower house of the legislature reversed course and approved an income tax of 4.75%. But hours later, it was voted down in the state senate. Instead, the legislature tried to extend the sales tax to everything from haircuts to boat-slip rentals. Declaring that "it's up to me to harbor the resources of the state as best I can," Weicker vetoed the legislature's budget and suspended nonessential services.

Since there is enough money in the state treasury to pay workers for several weeks, Weicker's shutdown was mainly designed to pressure lawmakers during round-the-clock negotiations that continued into the weekend. But the Governor will get the reform he has championed only when legislators become convinced that a more balanced tax system is the best way to end the boom-and-bust cycles of state budgetmaking.