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Path Is Sought for States to Escape Debt Burdens

ksu_aviator said:
Texas isn't in trouble. We have $9 billion in savings to use to get through lean times.

Now, it isn't perfect and it definitely isn't a boom time...but we are managing and our budget will come in balanced: Texas Senate budget also bleak, has more school funds than House version | The American Independent When all is said and done, they will come to a compromise that does reduce government responsibilities...but doesn't intrude on freedoms.
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Really?
2011 Budget Shortfall | Topic | The Texas Tribune
2011 Budget Shortfall



A budget shortfall as high as $25 billion is projected as lawmakers head into the 2011 legislative session, according to estimates from economists and the comptroller's office. Texas writes budgets biennially, or in two-year terms, so the shortfall affects the 2012-2013 state budget.

Leadership in the Texas Legislature, which is dominated by fiscal conservatives, is not expected to support attempts to raise taxes to fill the multibillion-dollar hole. But social service advocates say the state's safety net system can't afford any further budget cuts.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...-faces-record-budget-gap-on-revenue-drop.html

Texas’s Perry Faces Record Budget Gap on Revenue Drop
January 11, 2011, 10:31 AM EST

By David Mildenberg

Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Governor Rick Perry, after touting Texas’s growth while holding down taxes and spending, faces the biggest two-year budget gap in state history and a challenge some compare to the 1980s, when an oil bust roiled the economy.

Texas’s revenue will fall 2.9 percent to $72.2 billion in the two-year fiscal period that begins Sept. 1 compared with the biennium ending in August, state Comptroller Susan Combs said yesterday in Austin. She said the state also faces a $4.3 billion deficit that must be closed by the end of August.
 
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Did you not read the article that came out just 30 minutes ago and gave an overview of how the Texas legislature plans on balancing the budget? Speculation of shortfalls are only valid if the state doesn't react, they are reacting, they have a plan and everything is ok. We are no Illinois or California.
 
ksu_aviator said:
Did you not read the article that came out just 30 minutes ago and gave an overview of how the Texas legislature plans on balancing the budget? Speculation of shortfalls are only valid if the state doesn't react, they are reacting, they have a plan and everything is ok. We are no Illinois or California.
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Texas is not OK. Revenues are plummeting.
The Senate bill calls for $73.8 billion in expenditures, exactly what the state comptroller says Texas will earn in revenues over the next two years. The total is $27 billion less than what experts say is needed to maintain current state services
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Dirty Harry said:
Texas is not OK. Revenues are plummetting.
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Ya, they have a funny way of plummeting around here...

Texas sales tax receipts for December were $1.81 billion, up 9.4 percent over the same month a year earlier, Comptroller Susan Combs announced today.

It's the ninth month in a row that we've seen year-over-year improvement -- working, of course, off a dreadful 2009 yardstick. Combs said sales tax receipts grew "across the board." She mentioned the energy and manufacturing sectors, as well as stores and restaurants. The 9.4 percent monthly increase marks the highest of recent months[.

Sales tax receipts up 9.4 percent last month | Trail Blazers Blog | dallasnews.com
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regardless of who negotiated em, public pensions are poisoning our bottom lines

the expansion of medicaid by millions (egregiously exacerbated down the line by obamacare) is fiduciary mayhem

let's campaign on THAT

seeya at the polls
 
The Prof said:
regardless of who negotiated em, public pensions are poisoning our bottom lines

the expansion of medicaid by millions (egregiously exacerbated down the line by obamacare) is fiduciary mayhem

let's campaign on THAT

seeya at the polls
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Let's start at the top. Pensions for all lawmakers must be eliminated, a 10% pay cut across the board and no more free health insurance. Then work our way down.
 
Old conservatives are going to play the senior card on leftist controlled California. I get around fine, and can drive any where.

But I insist that County ParaTransit come pick me up and drive me to the doctor, and then take me home. And when I get home I call ParaTransit again to come pick me up and take me to the Pharmacy and then take me home again. This is reverse Cloward Piven. Overwhelm the system.
 
Dirty Harry said:
Let's start at the top. Pensions for all lawmakers must be eliminated, a 10% pay cut across the board and no more free health insurance. Then work our way down.
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tell it to obama, pelosi, moonbeam, cuomo...

sharing your ideas WITH ME is a waste of both our times
 
you have to ask?

LOL!
 
ksu_aviator said:
Oh...so we are supposed to compare today to a better time so that it fits your whole theory. Yes, Texas is slightly lower than 2008...but 2008 was a year with a higher GDP than 2010.
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My theory? Hardly. Revenues in Texas have plummetted leading to a 25 billion deficit. Fact. Not theory.

Rick Perry Faces the Biggest Drop in Texas Revenue Since Oil Bust in 1980s
 
not really. Texas budgeting, by law, is zero based. so what they actually have is 25 billion less to spend than last year.

mind you - thanks to their fiscal conservatism - they also have a hefty emergency fund sitting by. but i think they're just going to lower spending rather than touching that.
 
Dirty Harry said:
My theory? Hardly. Revenues in Texas have plummetted leading to a 25 billion deficit. Fact. Not theory.

Rick Perry Faces the Biggest Drop in Texas Revenue Since Oil Bust in 1980s
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Yes, there is a drop in revenue...but how much money the government spends has nothing to do with whether or not we are ok. Texans aren't losing sleep over the government spending $25 billion less than last year. You can trust me on that.
 
cpwill said:
not really. Texas budgeting, by law, is zero based. so what they actually have is 25 billion less to spend than last year.

mind you - thanks to their fiscal conservatism - they also have a hefty emergency fund sitting by. but i think they're just going to lower spending rather than touching that.
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Most states are broke, even Texas. Anti-tax, anti-labor and pro-business Texas was supposed to be the conservative beacon of fiscal smarts to others. Turns out the magic-hat trick of low taxes doesn't always pan out. The Lone Star State's budget shortfall could reach $27 billion.

That approximates the sad number now burdening high-tax, highly regulated and much unionized California, and Texas has only two-thirds as many people. The problem in Texas is that sales taxes account for 60 percent of revenues, and they dropped sharply in the recession. Having no income tax, Texas fell into budget havoc when consumers stopped spending.

But Texas also has a structural deficit -- that is, a deficit unrelated to economic conditions. Texas lawmakers cut property taxes in 2006 and created a business tax to cover the lost revenues. It was apparently not big enough.
Turns out Texas was the state that depended the most on those very stimulus funds to plug nearly 97% of its shortfall for fiscal 2010, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Texas, which crafts a budget every two years, was facing a $6.6 billion shortfall for its 2010-2011 fiscal years. It plugged nearly all of that deficit with $6.4 billion in Recovery Act money, allowing it to leave its $9.1 billion rainy day fund untouched.
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...........................The only reason Texas had done better than other states is oil.
 
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evan thomas' team at newsweek sees things differently

For sheer economic promise, no place beats Texas. Though the Lone Star State’s growth slowed during the recession, it didn’t suffer nearly as dramatically as the rest of the country. Businesses have been flocking to Texas for a generation, and that trend is unlikely to slow soon. Texas now has more Fortune 500 companies—58—than any other state, including longtime corporate powerhouse New York.

Austin boasted the strongest job growth in NEWSWEEK’s Top 10, both last year and over the decade. Home to the state capital and the ever-expanding University of Texas, the city is arguably the best-positioned of the nation’s emerging tech centers. It enjoys good private-sector growth, both from an expanding roster of homegrown firms and outside companies, including an increasing array of multinationals such as Samsung, Nokia, Siemens, and Fujitsu.

Yet Austin’s newfound prosperity isn’t simply a product of its university culture or its synergetic collection of technology firms. Its success owes a great deal to simply being in Texas—a state itching to eclipse its historic archrival, the increasingly troubled California. Indeed, Texas is becoming to the Golden State what Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon were in the last decade: a refuge for workers and companies fed up with California’s high unemployment, cost of living, and dysfunctional state government.

The Texas economy has benefited from widening diversification. Houston has a robust energy business and medical-services industry, and thriving international trade—all long-term growth areas. Dallas enjoys an expanding tech sector and well-developed business-service industries tied to a powerful corporate base. San Antonio has a strong military connection and an expanding manufacturing capacity, and it is a key locale for the growing Latino marketplace. What’s more, Texas offers pro-business policies and relatively low taxes, and the physical infrastructure in the cities is generally as good or better than in many East and West coast metropolitan areas.

People are voting with their feet. All four Texas cities are enjoying strong immigration from the rest of the country and abroad. Houston and Dallas have higher rates of immigration than Chicago, and if the job picture stays the same, those cities could someday rival New York and Los Angeles in terms of ethnic diversity.
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The Prof said:
evan thomas' team at newsweek sees things differently
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Texas has a lot of diversity. It is a big state. If my state had Texas oil we wouldn't be paying any taxes either. A lot of people are moving to Texas just like they moved to California decades ago. That means Texas will need more infrastructure to meet their needs. Eventually Texas will go the way of California. Especially if oil revenues drop.
The company I work for expanded operations to Texas to take advantage of the cheap labor.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...in-texas-revenue-since-oil-bust-in-1980s.html
 
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i don't appreciate your kneejerk argumentation

ie, you didn't even read the links

ie, you're putting me in a position of getting in trouble for violating dp's fair use rules

ie, grow up

Unlike the Sun Belt states and cities along the East and West coasts, these locales not only grew during the boom of the mid-2000s, they suffered least in the Great Recession. The fact that they are mostly in red states should give the newly ascendant GOP comfort as it tries to deliver on its election-year promise to right the economy. That isn’t to say all the blue states will remain weather-beaten. Wall Street, heady with cheap money, has sparked a return to opulence. And the strong demand for high-tech products and services will likely keep places like Boston, San Francisco, and San Diego from devolving into fancy versions of Detroit. Yet given the results of last week’s election and the increasing odds against another bailout of state governments, the near-broke and highly regulated blue states will be hard-pressed to generate much new employment.
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newsweek already cited for you texas' "pro business, anti tax policies"
 
The Prof said:
i don't appreciate your kneejerk argumentation

ie, you didn't even read the links

ie, you're putting me in a position of getting in trouble for violating dp's fair use rules

ie, grow up



newsweek already cited for you texas' "pro business, anti tax policies"
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Kneejerk? Give me a break. Texas revenues are declining and they will have a deficit of 25 billion if they keep spending constant. That is why they plan on cutting 30 billion in spending.
AUSTIN, Texas - Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst unveiled the Texas Senate's draft budget proposal on Monday, which called for 10.1 percent reduction in general revenue spending. The bill largely mirrors what was introduced by the state House last week.
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Facts, not kneejerk. Why do you right wingnuts always seem to ignore reality and only believe what you want to believe.
Texas can afford to be pro business/anti tax because of their oil revenues.

You live in Texas or something?
Unemployment is lower in my state than Texas.
 
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ask evan thomas

grow up
 
The Prof said:
ask evan thomas

grow up
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jan/12/texas-faces-budget-shortfall-gop-likely-to-slash-a/
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-taxes/2011-budget-shortfall/
http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2011/01/the-big-story-r-5.html
Ask him what? That Texas revenues aren't declining? Do you even know what you're talking about?
Looks like you are the one that needs to grow up. How old are you? Twelve?


Newsweek? Is that where you get all your information? LOL
 
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