Posted on 01/15/2008 7:49:39 AM PST by shrinkermd
Slower growth in tax revenues, the result of a weakening economy, are prompting governors from New Jersey to California to consider an array of belt-tightening measures to balance their budgets for this year and next.
Facing a severe revenue shortfall, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear has asked most state agencies to trim their spending by 3% in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine has proposed raising tolls and freezing spending to reduce his state's debt. And California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in a bid to avert a deficit in the coming fiscal year, has proposed closing state parks, eliminating dental care for the poor and cutting $4 billion from the state education budget.
"There are going to be very difficult -- but very necessary -- reductions to close the spending gap," says H.D. Palmer, a deputy budget director for California. "By definition, closing a $14.5 billion budget gap is difficult."
In last year's third quarter, state tax revenues overall were up 4.4% from a year earlier, according to a report scheduled for release today by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York. But, after adjusting for inflation, they were down 0.6%. That was the first year-to-year decline in four years.
Much of the shortfall stemmed from the slowing economy, as well as tax cuts enacted by some states for 2007. While revenues from personal-income taxes have remained healthy, growth in sales-tax revenues has slowed as consumers have reined in their spending, and income taxes collected from corporations have fallen, along with corporate profits.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Missouri Gov Blunt is expected to outline several $billions in new spending tonight in his state of the state address. Do not understand this...
Is it the spending or the bad economy?
Too much dependence on government. Said another way: spending.
Ohio ended the year with a billion in the rainy day fund.
Sure our dem Gov has been crying poverty, but so far I haven’t seen it.
And Ohio is/has been one of the weaker state economies.
yeah, more an issue of too much pork spending than lack of revenue.
Stop sending jobs overseas, and stop importing people who take our jobs.
I never thought I’d say this about a D, but he’s better than Taft. Income tax went down again this January. I might quibble with a few things here or there, but he’s really not been too awful.
Governess Jennifer Granholm has the answer!
Just jack up the taxes like Marty O’Money did in Maryland.
He deserves zero credit for the tax cut.
It was passed in 2005 and phases in over 4 years. The last part of the phase in is next year, unless they screw it up.
It did take a Dem to get the GOP to compete on “not spending” as opposed to competing on “more spending”
NJ tighten its belt? Never, just increase taxes so the Government elitists can perpetuate themselves and their families!
They recycle this headline every five or six years. When things start going well cities and states try to outdo each other by giving something, anything, to everybody. The sheep take it all and then the chit hits the fan, the media trots out this chestnut. Never a word about cutting spending.
I totally agree. I didn’t mean to imply that Strickland was responsible for it. But he’s been in office and hasn’t repealed it—or made an effort to repeal it—and that’s been a surprise.
Here’s a thought: SPEND LESS!
If we lose the state house (currently 53 R - 46 D) I won’t be expecting the final phase in.
Hopefully we can hang onto the 63rd and get back the 16th
this November.
I hope Beshear goes the same way and cuts spending, and actually gets out of debt... I doubt it though.
Where I live, they’ll just artificially inflate the appraisal value of our homes, to keep the money coming in on property taxes.
Depends on what the Fed does, as it relates to the economy being ‘the issue’ ten months from now.
We’re seeing a surprising increase in sales here in my shop as I type this.
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