Top state Republican Proto at New Haven City Hall: "I’m not sure how loosening the guardrails reduces $6-a-dozen eggs or $4.50 milk." Republicans are ready to argue during the upcoming state legislative session for preserving Connecticut’s ​“fiscal guardrails” and cutting energy costs.So said GOP State Chair Ben Proto in a conversation Wednesday at New Haven City Hall, where he was attending the swearing-in of local Republican Registrar of Voters Lisa Milone.Proto’s party lacks the numbers to drive policy in the session: Democrats have super-majorities — more than the two-thirds needed to override vetoes — in both the House and Senate.But on issues like whether to change the formula underlying the guardrails, Republicans have a sometimes ally in the ongoing debate: Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont.The 2017 bipartisan agreement that led to the ​“fiscal guardrails” formula — limits on how much money legislators can tap from quarterly income-tax receipts — have strengthened state finances and its credit ratings by devoting overflows to the rainy day fund and paying down pension debts.Many Democrats argue that the formula should be revisited to provide more money needed for early-child education and higher education, among other needs. The formula has produced higher revenues than originally envisioned; the state’s rainy day fund has maxed out.“If we’ve maxed out as much as we need, how about if we give it back to the taxpayers?” Proto argued: That would be the best way to help families meet the challenges of higher costs of living.What about using more money to further pay down the high pension debt rather than cut taxes? Proto responded that a better strategy would be to freeze salaries in upcoming negotiations with state unions and to cut the state workforce, in order to ​“slow down the amount we’re paying.”Click on the above video for a fuller conversation with Proto, including why he doesn’t see municipal-owned power utilities like Wallingford’s as a realistic strategy for cutting energy costs.