Posted on 04/05/2010 6:44:18 AM PDT by deport
Somewhere, somehow, Texas will have to find some new money.
It is too soon to say how much extra will be needed to help close the projected shortfall in the state's 2012-13 budget. Estimates of the budget hole range from a very conservative figure of $11 billion to more than $15 billion.
Budget cuts are already in the offing. State leaders are expected to pull the trigger soon on about $1 billion in spending trims, which could include prison guard layoffs and reduced payments to doctors and other Medicaid providers.
But budget watchers say it is unlikely that legislators will be able to cut their way out of the hole when they return to Austin in January.....
Oliveira, D-Brownsville, said across-the-board tax hikes are a non-starter.
"I'm not going to waste time on tax increases … if the votes aren't there and the governor is going to veto them," Oliveira said. ....
For now, Oliveira's committee is scouring the tax code for exemptions, exclusions and credits that could be scratched to generate a little scratch.
The severe budget crunch has also opened the door a touch wider for expanded gambling, including casinos and slot machines.....
Gambling, however, would not be a panacea for the state's long-term budget woes, Oliveira said.....
Nor is the rainy day fund, now an $8 billion emergency reserve that is brimming with taxes paid by oil and gas companies during their boom production years of 2007 and 2008.
Experts have warned that the 2014-15 budget could be even more snarled if legislators drain the rainy day fund and use other one-time measures to get them through the immediate crisis next year. ....
end snips
(Excerpt) Read more at statesman.com ...
Cut welfare spending and SCHIP.
Forget TTC! Sell I-35 to a Spanish Toll company! Charge the illegal immigrants using it both ways! Problem solved.
I believe we should outsource our prisioning of illegals. Take a Mexican who costs something like $100/day to house here in the US and pay his home country to imprison him about $10/day. A few inspections and audits would make sure things were being handled properly. At the end of his term, voila!!! already deported.
I agree that is needed, but will the RINOs actually do it?
Supposedly they have begun looking at budget cuts but I don’t think those will cover the expected shortfall in revenue. We are going to see some taxes or fee increases I believe, it’s just a matter of how much.
Great idea. We aren’t deporting them, we’re outsourcing them!
Yes, those items probably can be cut, but the big expense is state budgets these days is retirement expenses. Missouri is wrestling with this now. We have state employees who are retiring in their 50’s and we have school superindents who are making more than $200,000 per year and retiring in their 50’s to draw about the same amount.
I just don’t know how in the world it can continue—or how much longer poor idiots like us in the private sector are going to stand for it.
They’ll just do what they always do, raise property taxes.
How much of your property tax is for the State Budget?
“scouring the tax code”
How secure is the no state income tax in Texas?
They’ll just do what they always do, raise property taxes.
Heck we may even see some of Texas’ dry counties decide to open up and sell liquor.
How secure is the no state income tax in Texas?
Texas Constitution I believe requires a statewide vote before being allowed.
Good question. Considering how they're the ones that pretty much sent the HHS budget into orbit and brag about how much money they're spending on colonias while insisting that the word means "community", well, I'm not too hopeful.
Certainly they’ll shift more of the burden to local governments, and then you’ll see property taxes really go through the roof.
It’s in the Texas Constitution.
Of course “Republican” Perry passed a “gross receipts” tax on business that is really an income tax, so I suppose he could pass a “gross receipts” tax on people, too.
Just as they always do?
That would mean the state budget would be going down. I haven’t seen that yet.
Cut welfare spending and SCHIP.
No. Eliminate them.
Round up the illegals and ship them back, kick all the liberals out of the state.
Deporting liberals would be the single best thing we could do. It would eliminate a lot of social problems, eliminate the pressure for taxing and spending, and would comfortably down-size Austin.
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