Typical Reuters fake "reporting." Cut/eliminate the bureaucrats, not teachers and police. AND CUT THE TAXES! These states are all at Point B on the Laffer Curve.
Posted on 10/11/2009 5:53:24 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
U.S. states suffer "unbelievable" revenue shortages
By Lisa Lambert
Fri Oct 9, 5:59 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. economy may be creeping toward recovery after the worst slowdown since the Great Depression, but many states see no end in sight to their diving tax revenues.
Tax revenues used to pay teachers and fuel police cars continue to trail even the most pessimistic expectations, despite the cash from the economic stimulus plan pouring into state coffers.
"It's crazy. It's really just unbelievable," said Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers, and called the states' revenue situations "close to unprecedented."
Most states had been pessimistic in forecasting their tax revenues for the 2010 fiscal year, Pattison said. So far, collections have fallen below even those low targets.
Lower tax revenues could lead to higher taxes or another sharp reduction in services if receipts do not show signs of improvement before year-end, as every state but
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Ping!
its totally believable and predictable. It will fall even further
Jenny Granholm said we had a “breathtaking” tobacco and lottery revenue decline several months ago. Obviously the only solution is to raise taxes some more. LOL
“It’s crazy. It’s really just unbelievable...”
No, it’s not. It’s by DESIGN, you moron. (Scott, not you TLR!)
They wrote this article as if it was bad news that government is being starved down...
“The act also created a state fiscal stabilization fund and dedicated money to education.”
*SIGH* Yes, we need our kids to be educated...there is going to be an amazing shortage of workers that can read and write and do math in the near future.
What we DON’T need is Government setting aside our tax dollars for more teacher perks...when most of the kids are falling through the cracks as it is!
And until the states, counties, cities and towns are forced to curb their unsupportable pensions and staffing levels for their employees, revenue needs to drop still further. That’s where the the killer fat in our economy, but instead we’re starving productive private businesses.
*the killer fat is in our economy*
Should read “State governments overspending beyond their capacity to borrow, look to the federal govt for help”..
They don’t have a problem talking about revenue shortfalls, but the outrageous government spending that makes shortfalls a problem doesn’t seem to get much space over at Reuters. I wonder why that is?
And yet all states have tons of money for welfare programs.
What is keeping a lot of states afloat right now is the Stimulus money. Without that, there would be massive layoffs at the state level, in addition to, the secondary effects of those layoffs. However, the money will run out in 2010. That is why, I think, they’ll be forced to do Stimulus II. Many, if not most, of these state jobs are union jobs—the Dems will not allow massive union layoffs. The result will be more debt, more printing of $$, a devalued dollar, and (eventually) hyper-inflation.
In short, we are just pushing our problems off to the future, but increasing their effect with every delay. Our politicians are hell-bent on keeping Americans from feeling any pain whatsoever. When the pain finally comes, instead of a headache, we will get a massive brain embolism.
Government finally joining the ranks of those who starve while being forced to feed it?
The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy--If We Let It Happen, by Laffer, Moore, and Tanous.
See the chapter entiled "Bankruptcy 90210".
Our town is actually doing something about falling revenues. They now only have 6 people fixing a single pothole instead of the regular 7.
The States must do something to get the Federal Govt. out of their business.
They spent like drunken sailors as the housing bubble pushed property taxes ever higher. Now comes the reckoning.
Despite the $3,000 signs all over the place, the ARRA has little to do with economic stimulus and much to do about bailing out states that budget beyond their means.
There is the active Tea Party revolt going on, but there is an even greater passive revolt going on which involves handling personal finances in such a way as to deprive all levels of government of revenue. Much of the passive revolt is voluntary, but some of it is not because it involves people who have lost jobs and have no means to be taxed.
Remain calm! All is well!...and pigs have wings!
welfare ppl riot when you cut them off, so do city, state workers.
Certainly: What is unbelieveable is this sorry Kenyan proclaiming, he brought us back from the brink ,and that the recession is over.
This isnt even started good yet.Here comes inflation and no other country wants our dollars. What rock are they hiding under.?
Jenny Granholm said we had a “breathtaking” tobacco and lottery revenue decline
Wait, I thought those liberals in control WANTED people to quit smoking. Why the complaint now that tax revenue is down because 1) either they have or 2) they’ve found ways around the tax (e-cig, etc.)
That makes for a massive increase in shovel expenditures when the shovels are left alone and let to fall over and break.
Typical Reuters fake "reporting." Cut/eliminate the bureaucrats, not teachers and police. AND CUT THE TAXES! These states are all at Point B on the Laffer Curve.
Mich’s blog post today is about this:
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/
His comments on Gov. Daniels of Indiana:
“Give Daniels a cigar for multiple consecutive thoughts that make sense, an extreme rarity in politics at any level.
1) It is now very clear that the methods that have been used here, and in other states for that matter, are simply out of date.
2) Americans, including Hoosiers, have shifted in their consumption patterns. They are saving more and spending less.
3) This isn’t a very temporary phenomenon.”
When times were good they spent it all to buy as many votes as possible.
One word:
CAFR????
Let me be the first....
Jennifer Grandholm wants people to die of lung cancer and heart disease.
Not only that, the article is written as if government is being starved. Indiana, the writer says is, "among the worst cases."
How bad is "among the worst?
Revenues are 8% under projections.
Mississippi collections are down 10%.
Those figures are not starvation diets. They are the amount state budgets across the country should be cut just to start trimming the deadwood. Or, if government workers were treated as the rest of us are by this economy, what they should expect to take as a paycut.
Soak the Rich, Lose the Rich Americans know how to use the moving van to escape high taxes.
Just about everyone outside of the ‘professional’ economists know what’s happening to this country, and it’s not pretty. Our trajectory will make Japan’s lost decade seem like a cakewalk. But all we hear is great news on jobs (i.e., the loss of jobs slowed again), or how some company is hiring 10 new workers, or how the ‘stimulus’ has saved the economy, or how housing has recovered (prices are climbing [a bit] - yet there are nearly 10 million homes being kept off the market, for various reasons).
But when you get into the guts of it, where the real gears are, and where you simply cannot use puffy statements to deny something that’s obvious...that is when you get to talking to state budget officers who really see the fallout of a crashing economy and cannot paper it over...YOU GET THE TRUTH, finally.
“Tax revenues used to pay teachers and fuel police cars continue to trail even the most pessimistic expectations, despite the cash from the economic stimulus plan pouring into state coffers.
“It’s crazy. It’s really just unbelievable,””
No, it’s not unbelievable at all. It’s very understandable ...
When will they understand that this all started mid 2008, the moment we all saw The Big O nominated and that he might win.
What would our financial and social future be like if he won? Intelligen,t well read and well researched Americans knew what was coming and made preparations appropriately.
Why work for a Communist? The Communists never did - and so they stood in bread lines for hours to pay 5 cents for a loaf of bread - that many children in Moscow would then roll up and use as a soccer ball, since it was cheaper than a soccer ball ...
Don’t they stand for hours in line, right now, today, in Cuba, in Canada, in the U.K. . ???
Or do they just die waiting for a bureaucrat to OK the operation ... ?
Seeing that coming, wouldn’t you too cut back, save, “conserve” buy a gun and ammunition ??? ... oh wait, that’s just what so many did.
And there’s this big surprise that government revenue is down, the money they use to “fill” police cars.
No, that’s the money they use to pay $100,000 and $200,000 a year to the state employees who even have their own union -— and we all know how good and honest unions are.
And then there is the crazy retirement benefits of $200,000 and more per year for ... wait for it ... such state vital employees as Toll Takers. I talked to one today. The guy was so befuddled he couldn’t answer a basic question. He was sleepily leaning on a mop -— maybe he’s one of the hard working ones!!!
Wonder what HE gets paid ............
Go John Galt ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
How bout cutting government jobs for a change?
State tax revenues don’t lie.
Everybody else does.
I’m a Mitch supporter, but, not sure his deeds have matched these words. If he means he has now figured out that raising some of the taxes he has raised have driven otherwise law-abiding citizens to black markets for instance, maybe he is actually having an epiphany.
Personally, I’m saving more by buying cigarettes that Barack and Mitch aren’t taxing than I could save if we quit eating.
Wouldn’t be too surprised if a crackdown on us criminals was one thing instituted to turn this around.
That is all that matters to most of them. Any other program or function is expendable.
It’s interesting that some of theses states drops in tax collections matches closely to their current unemployment rates...which means the unemployment rate in Ga. must be horrible!
90% of the State of SC workforce could be cut and most (productive) people wouldn’t notice.
Gee, I guess governments will have to get smaller then.
“Jenny Granholm said we had a “breathtaking” tobacco and lottery revenue decline several months ago.”
She said this? Well, looks like the more we demonize smokers the less cigarette revenuw we get. Who would have guessed that?
I’m sick of seeing GH trotted out like a democrat hero - in case no one has noticed, we’re not doing all that well over here!!
“The fact is clear. Iowa has not spent too much; rather our revenue has fallen off by significant amounts as the result of the national economic recession,” Governor Culver said in a statement.
What pay cut? My school teachers are guaranteed 3.5% raise per year for the next 4 years AND any steps raises during that time. Such a deal.
This could be a plan to crash the economy to sell out to the “new world order”
They spent like drunken sailors...etc...etc...
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
HOLD ON!!
Being a former ‘drunken sailor’ I resemble that remark. If the ‘drunken sailors’ were a protected species, we could claim you were “ANTI-NAVEL [sic].
But like OB says, “I won’t raise taxes”...’they’ don’t have to. Just cut down funding the states, the ‘trickle up tax raises’ just cut US off at the knees.
Heard some ‘expert’ gripe the other day that people were not using credit cards, they were using debit cards.
THIS IS BAD? How- Isn’t that the target, spend within your means?
These friggin pols (BOTH SIDES) preach out of one side of their mouth but gripe when people do what they suggested..
such as cigarettes, booze, lottery, debit cards..etc...
States’ revenue is where the actual condition of the economy walks the walk.... and this is proving that the economic advisors and the messiah in DC have NO CLOTHES
My town is acting like if they don’t have the libraries open 7 days a week, 10 hours a day, western civilization is dooomed
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