Free Republic

New York State Assembly Democrats are mulling an array of new and higher taxes on the rich as well as legalization of mobile sports betting and marijuana to address a fiscal crisis fueled by the coronavirus pandemic. The lawmakers discussed raising taxes to close a projected massive budget deficit next year during a grim, private remote meeting held all-day on Wednesday. “If there was an idea to raise money, it was discussed today,” Assembly Education Committee Chairman Michael Benedetto (D-Bronx) told The Post afterward “Everything was discussed at great length.” The tax talk session comes as the New York City...

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) – Gov. Andrew Cuomo and leaders of the New York State Legislature say they’ve reached a $175.5 billion state budget agreement. The deal includes congestion pricing, a controversial plan to charge drivers below 60th Street in Manhattan. A panel of experts will set the surcharges by the end of 2020, but sources tell CBS2 drivers in cars will pay around $11.50 and truck drivers will pay about $25. Possible discounts for some are still being worked out. Lawmakers say the money will be spent to fix the MTA. A statewide ban on most single-use plastic bags is...

Corporate profits at California-based transnational corporations such as Apple, Facebook and Google are hitting record highs. California housing prices from La Jolla to Berkeley along the Pacific Coast can top $1,000 a square foot. It seems as if all of China is willing to pay premium prices to get their children degreed at Caltech, Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA or USC. Yet California -- after raising its top income tax rate to 13.3 percent and receiving record revenues -- is still facing a budget deficit of more than $1 billion. There is a much more foreboding state crisis of unfunded liabilities and...

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown signed a $125 billion state budget Tuesday, stamping his official approval on a package of bills his office negotiated with Democratic leaders and then ushered through a Democratic-controlled Legislature. Brown signed the budget without a news conference or a single line-item veto. This was the second consecutive year that Brown did not use his authority to change the budget passed by the Legislature. Prior to that, the last time a governor did not veto a single item in the state budget was the 1982-83 budget, when Brown was then governor as well. “California is taking...

A 30.3 billion dollar budget for Pennsylvania's 2015-2016 budget year was suddenly passed by the Republican controlled State Senate last evening. The Republican-controlled House looked ready earlier yesterday to move forward with approval of Democrat Governor Tom Wolf's 30.8 billion dollar plan that increased spending six percent. But the House adjourned amidst pressure from citizens concerned about tax hikes and amid concern over 'ghost votes'. Two Democrats not present at the Capitol Tuesday were counted as YES votes in the crucial 100-99 vote to put Governor Wolf's budget on the table. This new 500 million dollar less budget had been...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker delivered his budget address in February, presenting a $68 billion, two-year spending plan that he said would “assist small businesses and farmers.” .... watch Walker’s speech

Prop 30: Your Wallet or Your Kids. NO Either approve $36 billion in higher sales and income taxes or else Gov. Brown threatens to shoot the schools. Don't worry, the income taxes are only on the "very wealthy," but it turns out the "very wealthy" include many small businesses filing under sub-chapter S, meaning lower wages, higher prices and fewer jobs. California already has one of the highest overall tax burdens in the country and yet has just approved a budget to spend $8 billion dollars more than it's taking in. Moral of the story: it's the spending stupid. Prop...

The state Department of Parks and Recreation routinely searched for ways to spend extra money each June despite facing the threat of park closures and forgoing upkeep at its 278 properties, based on newly released transcripts from an internal investigation. Testimony from 30 interviews with state employees portrays parks administrators who appeared to have the opposite problem from one long described by Gov. Jerry Brown – excess cash left over and not enough ways to spend it. ....The documents depict a department that wanted to keep secret a reserve of its own special funds to hedge against future financial problems...

November 2012 Statewide Ballot Measures Proposition 30 Initiative Constitutional Amendment 1578. (12-0009) - Final Random Sample Update - 06/20/12 Temporary Taxes to Fund Education. Guaranteed Local Public Safety Funding. Initiative Constitutional Amendment. Qualified: 06/20/12 Proponent: Thomas A. Willis c/o Karen Getman (510) 346-6200 Increases personal income tax on annual earnings over $250,000 for seven years. Increases sales and use tax by ¼ cent for four years. Allocates temporary tax revenues 89 percent to K-12 schools and 11 percent to community colleges. Bars use of funds for administrative costs, but provides local school governing boards discretion to decide, in open meetings...

Milwaukee, Wisc. - According to Wisconsin's Department of Revenue, property taxes on homes in the state of Wisconsin have decreased for the first time in more than a decade. Governor Scott Walker's pledge to balance the budget without raising taxes was a key plank of his 2010 campaign, and his fulfillment of that pledge will be a major campaign theme leading up to the June 5 recall election. “Our reforms have reversed a decade of property tax increases from previous administrations,” Walker said in a statement on Monday. “For the first time in over ten years, the average property taxpayer...

For liberals nationwide, the 2012 election starts this summer with nine recall elections in Wisconsin. For liberals, these recalls aren’t just about Wisconsin; they’re about the country’s very future. It’s a national fight that won’t just set the course for Wisconsin, but the course to congressional and presidential victory in 2012 and beyond. Groups, such as We Are Wisconsin, a union front group said to have millions of dollars at its disposal, are coordinating simulated grassroots advocacy. Chief spokesman Kelly Steele holds near daily phone calls with friendly media in Washington, D.C., and other groups to explain the political layout...

First Step Toward Fiscal Responsibility This year we finally have a state budget that reduces state spending and is on time! Over the past eight years, the Rendell administration’s late budget tactics were used to drive state government spending higher and higher. One of the challenges we faced was a multi-billion dollar budget deficit. The budget deficit was addressed in this year’s budget by reducing spending with no tax increases and even included reductions in the job killing Capital Stock and Franchise Tax. This is the first budget that I have supported in 13 years because it takes the...

The Colorado Democrats are going to embark upon a state wide "listening" tour this weekend, the topic is the state budget. They are not happy with Gov. Hickenloopers proposal and they are trying to force their issue. You and I should be at some of the locations to "listen".

Join David K. Williams (Chair of the Libertarian Party of Colorado, Co-founder Gadsden Society of Colorado) as he moderates a discussion with Senator Shawn Mitchell, Representative Donald Beezley, Representative Chris Holbert, Senator Ted Harvey and Nancy Rumfelt of Liberty Watch Colorado, on Saturday March 12th. The conversation will be a review of what has taken place to this point in the legislative session. Perceived success and failures, what might be expected in the remainder of the session and what role you might be able to play. Budgetary concerns are likely to rule the day, but no doubt each panel member...

Next Tuesday (2-22-11) a political rally is being staged at the Huntington Beach pier. This rally is being promoted by the Regional Center of Orange County. The 21 regional centers in California are private agencies that were set up by an act of the state legislature. Their job is to distribute state money to support programs for people with developmental disabilities. Now the RCOC has become politically active. RCOC has sent e-mails to the programs they support, calling on them to bring their disabled clients to the rally next Tuesday. Since the RCOC is the funding source for these agencies...

New Mexico's budget crunch for the coming fiscal year could be $190 million worse than previously thought, and announcement of the bad news set off another fiery exchange between the outgoing administration of Gov. Bill Richardson and Gov.-elect Susana Martinez. Richardson's finance secretary Dannette Burch said Thursday that Martinez and state lawmakers will face a $450 million revenue shortfall for the fiscal year, starting next July 1, just to maintain the state's current level of services. That's a much higher number than the Legislative Finance Committee's earlier projected shortfall of $260 million. There have already been spending cuts in Santa...

Even before Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed California’s state budget on October 8—100 days late—it was clear that the deal that made it possible was a kick-the-can-down-the-road deception. As the Los Angeles Times reported before the budget’s legislative passage: “If approved, [the budget] would fall out of balance almost the moment the ink dried.” The paper concluded that legislators had, for the most part, “settled on accounting sleight-of-hand: deferred payments, borrowed money and optimistic revenue assumptions.” Both Republicans and Democrats seemed happy enough with the agreement, relieved that the long ordeal was finally over until a new governor and legislature take...

It’s official. In the Legislative Analyst’s initial eight-page summary of the budget approved by lawmakers in the early hours of the 100th day of the fiscal year it’s supposed to dictate spending for, the conclusion is that the package is unlikely to balance and certainly won’t improve the state’s chronic gap between spending commitments and revenue. “We estimate that well over two-thirds of the Legislature’s 2010-11 budget solutions are one-time or temporary in nature,” the analyst says in the top right-hand corner of Page 2. “This means that California will continue to face sizable annual budget problems in 2011-12 and...

July 1 came and went in Sacramento without so much as a whimper. We Californians are so used to our legislature not doing its job that missing the Constitutional deadline for passage of a state budget was just another day for the Tarnished State. No longer is California "The Golden State." I began calling it "The Tarnished State" several months ago in my blog. As if missing the budget deadline weren't enough, our comedic Governor went on YouTube to call for the elimination of redundancies in state government. Uhm… okay. Many of us have been screaming about this for decades,...

BATON ROUGE -- Slumping tax collections have punched a $319 million hole in the state budget, a forecasting panel determined Wednesday, giving Gov. Bobby Jindal and the state Legislature less than 10 weeks to decide what mix of spending cuts and one-time revenue sources should be used to fill the gap. In addition to lowering the current-year forecast, the Revenue Estimating Conference, a four-member panel that decides how much the state can spend each year, also lowered the forecast for the 2010-11 fiscal year that begins July 1 by $245 million. State officials have been anticipating another round of midyear...