House likely to cancel Saturday’s deficit-mitigation vote given Rell’s veto threat

The Democrat-controlled state House of Representatives, which caved Friday to Senate pressure to back a new deficit-mitigation plan, likely will cancel its Saturday session to vote on the package now the Gov. M. Jodi Rell has pledged to veto it, House sources said.

As the Senate entered session just before midnight to vote on the package, House sources said that unless all 24 Democrats in the 36-member Senate support the plan -reaching the two-thirds’ margin necessary to override a veto, Saturday’s session would be canceled. And sources in the Senate said no more than 22 of the 24 Democrats there would back the plan, which is not expected to receive any Republican support.

Rell announced late tonight she would veto the plan designed to eliminate this fiscal year’s $518 million deficit and also wipe out about 10 percent of the red ink projected for 2010-11.

The Republican governor said the plan, which boosts taxes on hospitals and cancels a recent tax break for wealthy estates, doesn’t cut spending enough and counts on unreliable funding sources.

“It is woefully short on real spending cuts and burdensomely high on tax increases,” she said.