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 ...
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.
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