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Mayors and first selectmen were outraged in December when their all-important education funding was cut mid-year, forcing administrators to scramble to make cuts in the public schools.

Republican legislators offered a plan Tuesday to close that gap completely, but Democrats did not agree amid squabbling at the state Capitol. As a result, the issue remains unresolved heading into Wednesday's budget address by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy as the state faces even bigger problems in the next fiscal year.

"Towns deserve to know what they can count on from the state so they can plan for their own budgets and give local taxpayers predictability," said Rep. Melissa Ziobron, the ranking House Republican on the budget-writing committee. "This proposal would restore vital funding to municipalities for our children's education needs and ensure that unpredictable state cuts are not placed on the backs of local taxpayers."

Republicans were working on a bipartisan plan as late as Monday, but said the proposal suddenly blew up Tuesday without a solid explanation why. Lawmakers, however, said there is hope they can still work together in the coming weeks to provide about $20 million in relief for cities and towns.

The state's major cities, including Hartford, Bridgeport, New Haven, New Britain, Stamford, and Waterbury, were all cut by a maximum of $250,000 each that was placed on the lowest-performing school districts. In Greenwich, however, the cut was far higher at $1.3 million for the remainder of the fiscal year that ends on June 30. Simsbury was cut by about $145,000, while Litchfield was reduced by $58,000.

The Republican plan calls for relatively small cuts statewide totaling $31.4 million - compared to an annual state budget of $20 billion. The cuts would be spread across 25 state departments and agencies, ranging from the prisons to the state library. One of the largest proposed percentage cuts Tuesday was 10 percent of the operating budget of the Connecticut Television Network, which provides live television coverage of the state House of Representatives and Senate.

But Malloy's budget spokesman, Chris McClure, said the Republican plan does not work.

"Given their ongoing sanctimony about so-called 'structural' budget fixes, it's laughable that Republicans now want to spend every last nickel in the current year budget, even with a very small projected surplus," McClure said. "If Connecticut Republicans were actually fiscally-responsible, they would put any surplus into the rainy day fund at year's end. Instead, they want to eliminate our surplus, and risk putting Connecticut back into a current year deficit. All of this from legislators who said the current year budget spent too much. This isn't a serious proposal. It's an attempt to pander and get headlines."

House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz said that a compromise is still possible.

"It's potentially a workable idea, but the details still need to be fully assessed," Aresimowicz said. "With the current budget year in balance, making a minor adjustment to avoid these cuts is certainly worth looking at. We offered to sit down to go over their proposal, but were told an announcement was already set. I'm still willing to meet and govern together."

While lawmakers are trying to help the cities and towns in the current fiscal year, they will also be tackling a larger deficit that is projected by Malloy's budget director, Ben Barnes, at $1.7 billion in the next fiscal year.

Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney of New Haven said the Democrats had offered to continue to meet on the idea.

"The Republicans instead chose to hold a press conference and play politics as usual, much as they did last week on the pension refinance bill," Looney said. "Rather than rushing into a press conference without details or consensus, we intend to meet with the members of our caucus on Wednesday to discuss the issue in hope to move from there to a bipartisan consensus."

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Republicans Offer Plan To Restore Education Funding, Dems Say Proposal Needs Work - Hartford Courant

Conservative Republicans Double Down on Push to Repeal Health Law Wall Street Journal WASHINGTONConservative Republicans, worried about growing voices within the party advising or accepting a slower pace for repealing the Affordable Care Act, are redoubling their push to speed the GOP's long-desired goal. President Donald Trump on ... and more »

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Conservative Republicans Double Down on Push to Repeal Health Law - Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON It was only a few months ago when Republicans routinely blasted the president for what they called his executive overreach and his failure to tout America's superiority over other nations. Not so much anymore.

Now that Barack Obama is out of the White House, Republicans have become noticeably quiet on a host of issues that used to spark their criticism.

In the last few days, President Donald Trump's actions have thrown the spotlight on three things Republicans don't seem to mind now that their fellow Republican is in charge:

RELYING ON EXECUTIVE ACTION:

For years, Republicans skewered Obama for allegedly ruling by fiat, accusing him of acting like an "emperor" for using executive orders to push through his agenda. That was especially true when it came to Obama's decision to protect from deportation more than 700,000 young immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children.

But now that Trump is in the White House, their tune has changed.

Trump has spent his first weeks in office relying on executive action to make good on a long list of campaign promises. Most controversial: His order suspending the country's refugee program and blocking immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries, which is now held up in court.

Asked recently if President Trump was doing the same thing as Obama, House Speaker Paul Ryan scoffed.

"It's quite the opposite," he told reporters at a recent GOP retreat, arguing that Obama had exceeded his power and that Trump was merely trying to reverse it.

"He's restoring the proper balance," said Ryan. "And in our opinion he is undoing a lot of damage that was done by the last president, who exceeded his power."

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FAILING TO EMBRACE AMERICAM EXCEPTIONALISM:

It was a running theme during Obama's tenure: The president, Republicans would argue, failed to embrace a brand of "American exceptionalism" that sees the U.S. as morally superior to other nations.

"We have a president right now who thinks America's just another nation," once-GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said during a 2011 primary debate. "America is an exceptional nation."

Obama defended himself, saying in 2014 that he believed "in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being."

Trump doesn't seem worried about the criticism.

In an interview with Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly that aired over the weekend, Trump dismissed concerns about befriending Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"But he's a killer though. Putin's a killer," O'Reilly said.

"We've got a lot of killers," Trump responded. "Boy, you think our country's so innocent?"

Pressed on the exchange in an interview with CBS'S "Face the Nation," Vice President Mike Pence stumbled on the question of whether he and the president think America is morally superior to Russia.

But he eventually said: "I believe that the ideals that America has stood for throughout our history represent the highest ideals of humankind."

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CRITICIZING THE JUDICIARY:

In 2010, President Obama delivered a rare, in-person rebuke of the Supreme Court. During his State of the Union speech, with justices sitting in the audience, Obama criticized the court's decision in the Citizens United campaign finance case.

Obama opened his remarks by saying his criticism was "with all due deference to separation of powers," but then argued the ruling reversed "a century of law" that would open the floodgates to money from special interests.

Critics decried the move as a breach of decorum that politicized the court.

And Trump has launched his own offensive against the judiciary branch with personal attacks on the federal judge who halted his immigration order.

"The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!" Trump tweeted over the weekend.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on CNN that it was likely "best to avoid criticizing judges individually."

But Pence defended the president's actions, telling NBC's "Meet the Press" that "the president of the United States has every right to criticize the other two branches of government."

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Follow Colvin on Twitter athttps://twitter.com/colvinj

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Republicans mum as Trump adopts Obama tactics - Minneapolis Star Tribune

And yet, we are hearing no pieties about American lives from Republican leaders on Capitol Hill, no sense that the cause of the failure should be investigated, let alone that Trumps role in it should be a major investigative focal point.

It is through events like Benghazi that we see just how paper-thin the GOPs commitments to its most defining ideals really are. What Republicans have held forth as fundamental principles are, thanks to Trumps election, revealed as hollow bromides and shibboleths. Trump will likely be president for at least four years; but starting now, and through the eventual end of GOP rule, we never have to take Republican sanctimony at face value again, and their phoniness ought to be a commanding narrative of the Trump era.

Over the weekend, Trump referred to James Robart, a George W. Bush appointee who temporarily enjoined his anti-Muslim immigration order, as a so-called judge, and directed his Twitter followers to blame future terrorist attacks on Robart and the entire court system.

This is the second federal judge Trump has attacked directly and his most undisguised assault on the judiciary in general since he became a national political figure. With a handful of exceptionsSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell notably said its best not to single out judges for criticismRepublicans on Capitol Hill have decided to pretend nothing happened.

Given the understated nature of their response to Trumps shameless and dangerous assault on the integrity of the judiciary, would you believe that when President Obama politely disagreed with the Supreme Courts 2010 Citizens United decision

conservatives lost their minds?

Whereas Trumps efforts to discredit the judiciary need to be resisted, he is free, as far as Im concerned, to undermine the National Prayer Breakfast however he chooses. To that end, he couldnt have done better than plugging The Apprentice during his speech there last week. He asked attendees to pray for the shows ratings, knowing evangelical conservatives would stick their heads in the sand, as they have for all of Trumps unholy outrages.

It shouldnt be forgotten, though, that many of these same evangelicals were beside themselves (or claimed to be) when Obama implored Christian critics of Islam to be mindful of terrible things that have been done throughout history in the name of Jesus Christ.

Hypocrisy is a third-rate political crime. But it isnt just that conservatives apply different standards to different politicians on the basis of partisan affiliation; its that their appeals to like-minded voters are fraudulent. National security, rule of law, and religious faith are supposed to be central facets of conservative identity. Presumably some Republican voters around the country are genuinely motivated by conservative views on these issues. For the time being, its up to Democrats and the media to make clear to these voters that the GOPs commitment to their principles is illusory.

But eventually Trumps presidency will end, and just as quickly as they abandoned these pieties, Republicans will try to reclaim them. It will be a major failure of politics, and perhaps also the media, if they succeed in doing so. Republicans outed themselves when they submitted to Trump, and they cant be allowed to pretend it never happened.

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Never Believe the Republicans' BS Ever Again - New Republic

Two of the top Republicans in Congresson Mondaysaid they are pushing ahead with the plan to begin repealing ObamaCare this spring, despite any confusion caused by President Trump saying the process could spill into next year.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin BradyKevin BradyOvernight Healthcare: Republicans say ObamaCare repeal starts this spring Republicans: ObamaCare repeal starts this spring Four areas Republicans have moved to uproot Obamas legacy MORE (R-Texas) told reporters that he is working off of Speaker Paul RyanPaul RyanOvernight Healthcare: Republicans say ObamaCare repeal starts this spring Republicans: ObamaCare repeal starts this spring Bottom Line MOREs (R-Wis.) timeline of moving repeal legislation by the end of March.

Thats the timetable Im working off of, Brady said.

"We're continuing on a good, deliberate, but pretty steady pace," he added.

Sen. John CornynJohn CornynOvernight Healthcare: Republicans say ObamaCare repeal starts this spring Senate set for high-noonvote to confirm DeVos Republicans: ObamaCare repeal starts this spring MORE (R-Texas), the Senate's No. 2 Republican, told reporters that a repeal bill under the fast-track process called reconciliation could come up in the Senate even within the next 30 days.

Hopefully in the next 30 days or so, Cornyn said when asked when he thinks the reconciliation bill could come up.

That could be an ambitious timeline, given the thorny issues Republicans have to work through when it comes to repeal and replacement of ObamaCare.

Trumptold Fox Newson Sundaythat maybe itll take till sometime into next year to put forward a replacement plan, calling the process very complicated.

Asked about Trumps comments, Cornyn emphasized that the initial repeal bill under reconciliation is just the beginning of the process, and that a series of smaller bills will follow.

We've said all along we're going to start the process using budget reconciliation, but it's not going to be all in one piece of legislation, they'll be multiple steps, Cornyn said. You'll have to ask him what he meant, but I think it's going to take it's not going to be instantaneous, because there is going to need to be a transition period.

Putting off some elements of replacement in a step-by-step process, though, would call into question Trumps pledge to repeal and replace ObamaCare essentially simultaneously.

Congressional Republicans have said they could include elements of a replacement plan in the repeal bill. Yet they note that full replacement cannot pass under the fast-track rules of reconciliation that allow a measure to avoid a filibuster.

Trump has caught congressional Republicans off guard on ObamaCare before, like when he said last month that he would soon be putting forward his own replacement plan, something lawmakers said they had not heard of.

Republicans arefacing headwindsas they seek to promptly pass a repeal bill, though. Many Republican lawmakers are pushing to pass replacement at the same time, and there are tough disagreements on what the replacement should look like, including on how to handle ObamaCares expansion of Medicaid.

Lawmakers are also facing crowds of constituents pressuring them not to repeal the law.

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Republicans: ObamaCare repeal starts this spring - The Hill