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U.S. states suffer "unbelievable" revenue shortages
Reuters ^ | 10/09/09 | Lisa Lambert

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 ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bhoeconomy; economy; financialcrisis; greatdepression2009; obama; revenue; state; taxes
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To: TigerLikesRooster
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed in February mitigated some states' financial pain by giving them more money for Medicaid, the health-care program for the poor run by states and partially funded by the federal government. The program can eat up large portions of states' budgets. The act also created a state fiscal stabilization fund and dedicated money to education.

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.

21 posted on 10/11/2009 6:08:22 AM PDT by randita (Release ALL the ACORN video now or risk having it deep sixed by Holder.)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

Remain calm! All is well!...and pigs have wings!


22 posted on 10/11/2009 6:08:53 AM PDT by RU88 (Bow to no man)
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To: pnh102

welfare ppl riot when you cut them off, so do city, state workers.


23 posted on 10/11/2009 6:09:52 AM PDT by omega4179 (pos approval rating -11)
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To: 4rcane

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.?


24 posted on 10/11/2009 6:10:38 AM PDT by Venturer
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To: cripplecreek

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.)


25 posted on 10/11/2009 6:12:39 AM PDT by GeorgiaDawg32 (I'm a Patriot Guard Rider..www.patriotguard.org for info..)
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To: DH
They now only have 6 people fixing a single pothole instead of the regular 7.

That makes for a massive increase in shovel expenditures when the shovels are left alone and let to fall over and break.

26 posted on 10/11/2009 6:13:19 AM PDT by EGPWS (Trust in God, question everyone else)
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To: TigerLikesRooster
Tax revenues used to pay teachers and fuel police cars continue to trail even the most pessimistic expectations...

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.


27 posted on 10/11/2009 6:14:41 AM PDT by FormerACLUmember (When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

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.”


28 posted on 10/11/2009 6:14:42 AM PDT by Need4Truth (Who can reprogram the Branch Carbonians?)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

When times were good they spent it all to buy as many votes as possible.


29 posted on 10/11/2009 6:14:49 AM PDT by Let's Roll (Stop paying ACORN to destroy America! Cut off their government funding!)
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To: TigerLikesRooster
One of the natural results of "progressive" taxation. The rich, which the progressive taxes aim at, are often those most hurt by a recession. A wage employee can only lose one day's worth of pay for every day he doesn't work while an investor can lose a year's worth on income in a single bad day. Also, the rich are the most able to adjust their lifestyle and location to change their tax situation. Thus by not spreading taxes more equitably across the population, but instead tying them to a few "draft horses" the government either kills them or causes them to run off and finds that they are hit very hard by bad times.
30 posted on 10/11/2009 6:15:16 AM PDT by KarlInOhio (Soon everyone will win a Nobel Peace Prize for not being George Bush...well, except for George Bush.)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

One word:

CAFR????


31 posted on 10/11/2009 6:16:46 AM PDT by djf (Some people are proud. Some people are curious. I'm proud that I'm curious!!)
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To: GeorgiaDawg32
Jenny Granholm said we had a “breathtaking” tobacco and lottery revenue decline

Let me be the first....

Jennifer Grandholm wants people to die of lung cancer and heart disease.

32 posted on 10/11/2009 6:17:11 AM PDT by EGPWS (Trust in God, question everyone else)
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To: abb
They wrote this article as if it was bad news that government is being starved down...

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.

33 posted on 10/11/2009 6:17:38 AM PDT by Brugmansian
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To: mewzilla
From this past May, Laffer and Moore this time...

Soak the Rich, Lose the Rich Americans know how to use the moving van to escape high taxes.

34 posted on 10/11/2009 6:18:02 AM PDT by mewzilla (In politics the middle way is none at all. John Adams)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

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.


35 posted on 10/11/2009 6:19:45 AM PDT by BobL
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To: TigerLikesRooster

“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 ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,


36 posted on 10/11/2009 6:19:59 AM PDT by DontTreadOnMe2009 (So stop treading on me already!)
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To: TigerLikesRooster
BOO EFFING HOO!!!

How bout cutting government jobs for a change?

37 posted on 10/11/2009 6:21:58 AM PDT by unixfox (The 13th Amendment Abolished Slavery, The 16th Amendment Reinstated It !)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

State tax revenues don’t lie.

Everybody else does.


38 posted on 10/11/2009 6:22:01 AM PDT by cgbg (Lying is what they _do_.)
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To: Need4Truth

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.


39 posted on 10/11/2009 6:22:35 AM PDT by John W
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To: pnh102

That is all that matters to most of them. Any other program or function is expendable.


40 posted on 10/11/2009 6:29:24 AM PDT by wally_bert (It's sheer elegance in its simplicity! - The Middleman)
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