BOSTON, May 9 (UPI) -- The Massachusetts House late Thursday night approved a $22.5 billion budget for fiscal 2004 that calls for deep cuts in aid to cities and towns, higher education and health care programs, but no new taxes to address a $3 billion budget deficit.
"We've had to make difficult decisions in extraordinarily difficult times," House Ways and Means Committee chairman John H. Rogers said after the Democratic-controlled House voted 128-29 just before midnight to send its spending plan to the Senate.
The Senate was expected to release its budget proposal on May 21 for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
Senate President Robert E. Travaglini said the Senate's budget also won't include any new or increased taxes but will likely allow cities and towns to raise local option taxes, such as hiking the meals tax in Boston from 5 percent to 6 percent.
Republican Gov. Mitt Romney has opposed the local tax increase option.
The Senate bill was also not expected to turn to increased gambling to raise money to bridge the budget deficit. The House had rejected two measures to allow slot machines at racetracks in the state.
The House budget, which slashed 20 percent from the state's public colleges and universities, immediately came under attack by advocates for various special interest groups.
The Massachusetts Teachers Association warned the budget would "turn back the clock" on recent advances in education.
Before the House vote, legislators partially restored the Prescription Advantage program that provides medication for some 80,000 elderly and disabled people in the state.
The program, which cost some $95 million in the current fiscal year, had been set to end in June. The House, however, approved spending $59 million for the program in fiscal year 2004, with the money being leveraged from federal funds. Participants would also be required to pay higher fees.
The House also saved the job of University of Massachusetts President William M. Bulger by sending Romney's proposal to eliminate the office of the former Senate president to study, which is tantamount to killing it.
In Rhode Island, meanwhile, the Statehouse rocked Thursday with rallies for and against Republican Gov. Don Carcieri's proposed $2.768 billion budget.
Carcieri rejected calls from union leaders and cities and towns to raise taxes rather than cut state spending.
"No. No. I don't think that's a solution," Carcieri said, according to Friday's Providence Journal. "You don't just tax people to get out of this problem. This problem is a spending problem."
"A modest increase may solve much of what he perceives the problem to be," said Daniel Beardsley, executive director of the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns, "and enable cities and towns to adequately fund the programs and services they currently provide."
