Posted on 03/30/2010 10:31:35 PM PDT by tjbandrowsky
While many eyes have been turned and rightfully so towards the federal government, states seem to have suffered far less scrutiny in their budgeting and it shows.
I thought the federal budget was a mess, but wow, the story at the state level is just a kick in the elbow. Getting an accurate story on state budgets is a challenge. I plugged in New Jersey and California into my budgeting application and you can go through the work of cutting budget items online to try and balance it.
New Jersey for all of its faults is at least somewhat organized if almost deliberately tedious. California, I have added also, is such a mess as to defy humanity.
For these two blue state budgets, you basically see the same destinations of money all being repeated, coming from multiple funds, that are funded from multiple things. It is fair to say that California seems to spend a lot more on education and prisons, but New Jersey just has lavish social benefits. Also, its interesting that New Jersey seems to have very little capital construction going on right now. New Jersey's budget is really more welfare than roads.
When the state starts having budget problems eventually it comes to an end as things start to shut down like in California, the Feds just tax us all into the ground thou inflation.
So yes the attention on the Federal budget is a bit more a pressing issue.
Cause our State budgets will become resolved when things start shutting down on their own for lack of their ability to pay anyone, and if they tax too much we simply move. lol
It’s a good point.
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