Republicans promised for months that their budget would have no new taxes. They were lying the whole time. The GOP budget that passed the legislature has $840 million in new taxes — including $139 million in new taxes on the working poor.

In addition, it would

• Decimate higher education;

• Attack working people and the right to collectively bargain;

• Leave people faced with crumbling foundations high and dry;

• Fail to make much-needed investments in our urban centers;

• Kill Connecticut’s clean election program, allowing special interests to exert even more influence over elections.

• And fail to make the structural reforms Republicans promised — indeed the budget would INCREASE Connecticut’s long-term deficit.