Posted on 07/19/2011 6:34:49 AM PDT by doug from upland
Indiana ends budget year with $1.2B surplus
July 14, 2011, 6:47 pm EDT INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- After a year of spending cuts to state agencies and school districts, during which state workers were asked to do more than ever, Indiana released its final budget numbers for the fiscal year that showed it sitting on a $1.2 billion surplus.
State Auditor Tim Berry called the state workers who bore most of those budget cuts via greater workloads, "heroes."
"The surplus was built on the backs of state employees," said Berry, after he thanked them for tightening their belts.
Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels has already said he plans to keep that money in savings rather than reverse cuts made in recent years.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Hope they throw a little tax relief in there too.
It’s OK to have state employees work. It’s good to have a surplus.
No, no no!
They did it all wrong!
They were supposed to raise taxes AND hire more government employees!
And just look what it got them. Idiots. /s
Another example of the Republicans trying to destroy the economy so as to diminish the re-election victory of Barack our Savior Obama (blessing be unto him).
Small surplus and already the pigs begin fighting over how to spend it on themselves.
No, it was built on the back of taxpayers. Tax PAYERS should be reimbursed.
When it became undeniably clear that Texas was taking jobs from Democrat states like California and Michigan, the MSM was Johnny-on-the-Spot with anti-Texas hit pieces.
The saw the Indiana numbers coming and began to run anti-Indiana smear jobs several weeks ago.
Hey, don't forget to thank the state employees Unions. They had to tighten their belts too, you know.
Or did they?
Exactly. The money comes only from the taxpayers.
I live in Indiana and it was built on a 1% increase to the sales tax, not property or income taxes. My homeowner taxes went down by 2/3 when the increase became effective.
A tax on consumption is fair because everyone pays their share, and the more you spend, the more you pay. People who pay no property or income taxes still pay sales taxes.
Daniels hit the teachers unions hard, and he got the voucher program through also. His very first act as governor was to axe the unions negotiating rights like Wisconsin had to fight so hard to do, here in Indiana the governor can do it with a stroke of the pen.
My property taxes at home and here at my business have gone down since Daniels took over, since he got here he has straitened the state around completely.
I don’t mind the state building up a kitty before he cuts taxes either, especially with the sh*tstorm Washington is sailing us into now. I pray to God Pence takes his seat and keeps pushing like Daniels has, that surplus will be gone in a heartbeat if the Dems got hold of it. As far as giving the state workers who are left a small bonus (between $500 and $1k depending on job performance evaluations) I have no problem with it, the amount added up to just .0133% of the surplus and everyone got a chance at it, not just political supporters like most Democrat controlled systems work.
My property taxes are almost all the way back up where they were before the “property tax reform”. They just keep increasing my “assessed valuation”.
Don’t ask if houses if our neighborhood are selling for anywhere near the “assessed valuation” and now parents are going to have to pay $55.00 per month per child to ride a school bus because they didn’t approve a property tax increase for the schools.
And when those few folks go to Indy last Sunday in May, they pay the sales tax too.
I guess it’s different in Vanderburgh county. My property taxes are still reasonable and my home’s assessed value is still below market. I couldn’t tell you if they charge for school bus riders since my kid is grown and gone.
I do know the county is completing construction on a new state-of-the-art high school/middle school complex in the north part of the county and a new stadium for the high school on the east side. The money must be coming from somewhere.
Yes, and didn’t Reagan return a surplus to the taxpayers when he was governor of California??
This is around 9 percent of Indiana spending. Humm. So if the Feds did the same thing, they could generate a surplus of 300 billion a year? This was accomplished with adding a sales tax and cuts.
At this rate, if the Feds used the Indiana plan, they could get rid of the debt in around 45 years.....yeeepeee.
In KY a few years back we had a nice surplus and that idiot ernie fletcher a republican came out and sought input from the public on what to do with it. They couldn’t wait to spend it.
Many conservatives suggested: a rainy day fund, pay down some debt and tax refunds since it was the tax payers money.
We got a bunch of golf courses built and it was pissed away rather quickly. Fletcher got his butt handed to him in the next election.
“Indiana state employees aren’t unionized.”
I’m not sure what you mean by that. There are public employee unions in IN, but the majority of eligible employees aren’t in a union or have dropped out. I think something like 7% of the IN public workforce remain in a union and 80% are eligible.
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