Path Is Sought for States to Escape Debt Burdens

Dirty Harry said:

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.

Texas’s Perry Faces Record Budget Gap on Revenue Drop - Businessweek

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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The Prof said:

while the gamins continue to argue and giggle, the bottom line abides---public pensions and expansive medicaid are sinking our states

'Something's Got To Give': Massive Pension Fund Shortfalls Threaten To Bankrupt States

Soaring Medicaid costs could bust state budgets - Sep. 30, 2010

it's really pretty simple

ie, moms and pops get it

seeya at the polls, pals

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Exploding Medicaid costs are straining state budgets across the country and were a primary cause of 2006 budget gaps that legislators faced in roughly half of the states this year, according to an April 14 report from the NCSL.

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Across the country, government workers’ pensions are protected by guarantees even stouter than those on pensions in the private sector. The legal promises, often backed up by union contracts, cover more than 15 million people.

Years of supporting court interpretations have enshrined the view that once a public employee has earned a pension, no one can take it away. Even during New York City’s fiscal crisis 30 years ago, no existing pension promises were reduced.

But now a number of state and local governments are quietly challenging those guarantees. Financially troubled San Diego is the highest-profile example, but a handful of states, cities and smaller government bodies have also found ways to scale back existing promises and even shrink some current payments.

While still only scattered cases, these examples may be an early warning sign of what could be coming elsewhere. As local officials take stock of unexpectedly large obligations to retired public workers, some are starting to question whether service cuts, sales of government property and politically acceptable tax increases can ever go far enough to bring things into balance.

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