Yesterday, state lawmakers passed a “deficit mitigation bill” to cut the roughly 1.2 billion dollar budget gap for this fiscal year more cutting is coming up, with an $8.7 billion dollar deficit looming for the next two years.

The process has included some of the same political name-calling as previous budget fights. It’s also included some of the same thinking and solutions: Cuts to services, shuffling of state funds, union concessions.

Budget guru David Osborne says “the idea that Connecticut can get through our fiscal crisis without raising taxes or fees is a fantasy”. But Osborne isn’t a proponent of states just raising more revenues to fund the same old government.

For more than 20 years, Osborne has been talking to governments large and small about how they can “reinvent” themselves...to budget for results, not costs - and to create positive competition among state agencies.

Today – Where We Live, we’ll continue our Thursday series focusing on the economy. We’ll talk about “The Price of Government” that the public’s willing to pay for – and how lawmakers can better set priorities for the state.