Connecticut's House voted to repeal the state's recently adopted income tax but would need 15 more votes to override Gov. Lowell Weicker's promised veto.
The measure headed to the Senate, which was expected to vote on it Tuesday afternoon.The alternative budget plan would replace the income tax with a higher sales tax, an increased tax on investment income and more than $200 million in spending cuts.
The House approved the plan 86-63 Monday night. To override a veto by Weicker, opponents of the income tax would have to muster 101 votes, or two-thirds of House members.
"Based on the strength of tonight's vote, repeal is dead in the water," said Democratic state Rep. Miles S. Rapoport.
Weicker, an independent, refused to let lawmakers go home for the summer until they approved the 4.5 percent state income tax in August. Lawmakers had passed three budgets without the income tax, but Weicker vetoed all of them before the 53-day deadlock was broken.
The governor had insisted the tax, which took effect Oct. 1, is the only way to solve the state's budget problems, but the repeal movement began as soon as he enacted the $7.9 billion budget.