Replies

GopHack, in another response to my message, noted that the proposed budget for next year is in the $100 billion range.

If I'm understanding this correctly - hard to believe these figures since they're so bad - if we assume revenues are going to be flat between this year and next, we're talking about a $40 billion hole, not $20 billion.

Budget	Budget Increase	Deficit	Gap	% Shortfall
$80bln	-	$20bln	$20bln	25%
$100bln	$20bln	$20bln	$40bln	40%

Am I missing something here?

If the public at large understood this stuff, Davis wouldn't have a chance at getting out of the state house alive, much less being re-elected.

And he ran on a pseudo-conservative, responsible platform, too! Can't trust these guys.

I'm not sure it matters. Davis can't propose a budget that isn't balanced, and the legislature can't pass one that isn't balanced.

There are various estimates of what the projected budget will have to look like, but that's different that what the proposed one will be.

Will Davis propose a budget of $100 billion or $60 billion? We won't know until after May 14.

If the public at large understood this stuff, Davis wouldn't have a chance at getting out of the state house alive, much less being re-elected.

That's the thing, the budget is such a complex issue that most people get lost in the first paragraph. There are so many different pots of money, some that the legislature can't touch because of federal restrictions or earmarked funds, money that goes to one pot or another and is included in the overall budget numbers, but in fact is "unbudgetable" meaning that the money goes for a specific purpose or doesn't come in.

There is actually very little discretionary spending in the budget ... however, instead of being responsible with the budget surpluses over the past three years, Davis and the Democrats grew the size of government by 37%. Also, every year there are automatic cost-of-living adjustments. If you don't give an entitlement the COLA, that's considered a cut.

Basically, the state doesn't have the money to pay its current bills, so it is borrowing from future revenue. But how is the state going to pay it's bills next month? And the month after that? And so on. We are so far in the hole that unless we cut back the spending INCREASES Davis instituted over the past three years, we'll never see the light of day. In fact, if we rolled back the size/cost of government to a mere three years ago when Davis was first elected, we wouldn't HAVE a budget deficit.

Dump Davis!