Free Republic

But if history is a guide, governors and legislators across the country will seek to avoid the difficult choices that are required. Instead, they will likely pass the costs of the services that we enjoy today on to our children and grandchildren, through creatively deceptive budgeting. This is a time-honored practice. In 1991, the State of New York sold Attica prison to none other than itself. The buyer was a state agency that financed the $200 million purchase price by issuing bonds. The agency then leased the prison back to the state, with the lease payments being equal to the...

He says he is — seriously devoted to building and maintaining highways. But he is just as devoted to fencing state government into fiscal straits that make these goals impossible without privatizing highways through tolls. Perry last week said that going full-bore with toll roads is the only way for Texas to build new highways. That’s not so. The history of Texas tells us it’s not. Toll roads have their function without question. But so do bonds. So does a gasoline tax that has not kept pace with inflation. So does a reexamination of how Texas funds highways in general...

"Wisconsin governors have long been allowed to sign off on budget bills but do some tricky erasing first. They could delete words, numbers, sentences, paragraphs or some combination of all of those, to create entirely new meanings never intended by the original authors — a legislative twist on the game of Mad Libs. Like when Gov. James E. Doyle, a Democrat, scratched out some 700 words from a section of the 2005 budget bill, leaving behind just 20 words that, when stitched back together, moved $427 million from the transportation fund to education."

Gasoline prices, which for months lagged behind the big run-up in the price of oil, are suddenly rising quickly, with some experts saying they could approach $4 a gallon by spring. Diesel is hitting new records daily, and oil settled at a record high of $100.88 a barrel on Tuesday. The increases could not come at a worse time for the economy. With growth slowing, energy increases that were once easily absorbed by consumers are now more likely to act as a drag on household budgets, leaving people with less money to spend elsewhere. These costs could worsen the nation’s...

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It's starting to seem like a tradition in the Golden State: pay raises for the highest-paid elected officials in the country while their budgets go bare. This week, Sacramento's legislators got a boost to their paychecks. They were already the best-paid legislators in the country, but still they got a $3,111 a year raise, to $116,208 with only a few declining the increase. That's on top of their generous per diems, state cars, and large office staffs. And what have these pols done to earn this boost? Let's see: redistricting legislation? Nope. Health care reform? Nope. Solved the budget problems?...

AUSTIN — A political activist dedicated to independent candidates and third-party tickets has launched a new Internet site dedicated to impeaching Gov. Rick Perry. Linda Curtis, founder of Independent Texans, launched the site to call on the Legislature to draft articles of impeachment against Perry in 2009. Curtis noted that Texas does not have the right of recall, so petitioning the Legislature to impeach the governor is the only answer when citizens are unhappy. When asked about the new Impeach Perry Web site, Perry spokesman Robert Black responded by saying: "Free speech is a wonderful thing." Curtis said the two...

WASHINGTON, March 30 — The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has estimated that the Army has enough budget flexibility to pay for its military operations through July in the event that a standoff between the White House and Congress over Iraq holds up the money the administration says it needs for the war effort. The service’s report, made public Friday by Senate Democrats, said the Pentagon may have to shift money between accounts and curtail some nonessential activities, but said Congress has provided the military with new ability to do so, lessening the potential for disruptions until additional money is approved....

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s budget director mounted a blistering attack on Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s proposed state budget yesterday, asserting that it would create an $862 million shortfall in the New York City budget for the fiscal year that starts on July 1. The city’s budget director, Mark Page, warned that such a shortfall, if other revenues were not found, could result in an 8 percent across-the-board cut in agency spending or imperil the mayor’s $1 billion plan to cut taxes. Mr. Bloomberg’s plan calls for reducing property taxes by about 5 percent for one year, eliminating the city sales tax...

Dems to Wipe Out Pet Projects in Bills Dec 11 8:08 PM US/Eastern By ANDREW TAYLOR Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON Democrats tidying up a cluster of unfinished spending bills dumped on them by departing Republican leaders in Congress will start by removing billions of dollars in lawmakers' pet projects next month. The move, orchestrated by the incoming chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations committees, could prove politically savvy even as it proves unpopular with other members of Congress, who as a group will lose thousands of so-called earmarks. "There will be no congressional earmarks," Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., and...

Man, and you guys thought I was optimistic earlier. Check this out: [Lawrence Kudlow says] Look at blue dog conservative Dem victories, and look at Northeast liberal GOP defeats. The changeover in the House may well be a conservative victory, not a liberal one. Blue dogs are rabid budget balancers. At tomorrow's news conference, President Bush should reach out to them, and to Republican base, with a spending limitation pay-as-you go proposal that gets to a balanced budget in a couple of years. Any spending increases (defense) must be offset with spending cuts (domestic pork). A spending limit paygo was...

Air Force Association August 2006, Vol. 89, No. 8 By Robert S. Dudney, Editor in ChiefBack to Demolition Derby? The Air Force should prepare itself for budget combat. Critics frequently dispute USAF’s claim that it needs to modernize its aircraft fleets. For anyone who may have harbored an honest doubt, though, the question was answered by a June exercise in Alaska. Twelve super-sophisticated F-22s, in simulated combat, posted a startling 108-to-zero record against current-generation “enemy� fighters, reported Gen. John D.W. Corley, USAF’s vice chief of staff. Against the same foes, older F-15s and F/A-18s did one-tenth as well as the...

COLD SPRING HARBOR, N.Y., Sept. 14 — Friday night’s season opener pitting the Cold Spring Harbor Seahawks against their perennial championship archrival, the Roosevelt Rough Riders, is the football game that almost didn’t happen...

BALDWINSVILLE, N.Y., Sept. 7— Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said on Thursday that if elected governor he would close hospitals and drastically cut spending in an effort to restore fiscal discipline to New York State. Giving his most candid glimpse yet of his plans to put the state’s fiscal house in order, Mr. Spitzer said that to fulfill his pledge to cut property taxes he would have to take aim at the state’s health care system. “We’re going to take the tough medicine,” he said at a campaign stop in this Syracuse suburb, adding: “I’m saying to folks this isn’t all...

Costly Promises LOCKPORT, N.Y. — For two and a half years, Michael Tucker was mayor of this small city by day and an autoworker by night. Then in May, he became one of the nearly 50,000 workers at General Motors or its former Delphi parts division to take buyouts, lured by the $33,000-a-year pension his company offered. That pension, and a smaller one he expects to collect from the state after his years as mayor, makes him a little unusual in a nation where more and more workers are not covered by such plans. But now, as mayor of Lockport,...

Dear Colleagues, Despite the accounts that education “won” with the passage of the state budget, we have precious little to celebrate and every reason to question the agreement reached by Governor Janet Napolitano, President Ken Bennett, and Speaker Jim Weiers. The Arizona Education Association opposes this budget and takes offense that it was negotiated in secrecy, voted on in the middle of the night, and that educators were not consulted about, or alerted to, the inclusion of vouchers. Specifically, Arizona is looking at more than $1.5 billion in lost revenue over the next three years, the continued expansion of corporate...

Budget forecast looks sunny State expects nearly $2.8 billion more in 2007-09 than it now collects JOSEPH TURNER; The News Tribune Published: June 16th, 2006 01:00 AM When the Legislature comes back to the state capital to write a budget for the next two years, lawmakers should have plenty of money. Chang Mook Sohn, the state’s chief economist, said Thursday that his outlook for tax collections for the 2007-09 biennium shows ever-increasing revenues that lawmakers use to pay for public schools, colleges, prison and most other state programs. Despite $3-per-gallon gas, consumers are still on a spending spree, Sohn said....

House GOP budget talks collapse By William L. Watts, MarketWatch Last Update: 9:06 PM ET Apr 6, 2006 WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Divided by disagreements within their own party and unable to attract Democratic support, House Republican leaders shelved efforts Thursday to bring a $2.7 trillion budget outline for fiscal 2007 to a vote ahead of a two-week Easter recess. "We owe it to American taxpayers to craft a budget that spends their tax dollars wisely, and it is unfortunate Democrats would refuse to consider a fiscally-responsible approach rejecting the failed policies of more taxes and more spending," said House Majority...

Ind. House Wrongly Valued at $400 Million VALPARAISO, Ind. - A house erroneously valued at $400 million is being blamed for budget shortfalls and possible layoffs in municipalities and school districts in northwest Indiana. An outside user of Porter County's computer system may have triggered the mess by accidentally changing the value of the Valparaiso house, said Sharon Lippens, director of the county's information technologies and service department. The house had been valued at $121,900 before the glitch. County Treasurer Jim Murphy said the home usually carried about $1,500 in property taxes; this year, it was billed $8 million. Most...

Latvian Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis (People’s Party) has once again confirmed the Latvian readiness to reject the EU budget proposed by Great Britain and envisaging shortage of financing the poor countries members of the EU. As a REGNUM correspondent reports, the Latvian prime minister made the statement in an interview to the Latvian Radio on December 7. However, the premiers words were followed by the opinion of the prominent republican economist Uldis Osis, who said Latvia should not exaggerate its losses. “In reality, taking into account the present situation, we can see that difficulties have occurred concerning the use of...

OLYMPIA, Wash. - State tax collectors are unexpectedly busy across America, and many states have built strong reserves that exceed Wall Street's recommendations. Yet lawmakers and governors are worried. A new report from the National Conference of State Legislatures says state budgets are in the best shape in five years, thanks to "robust" tax collections and tough budgeting. Collectively, the states have reserves of 7 percent, almost twice what they projected and well above the 5 percent cushion that Wall Street suggests. But the same report, released Wednesday at the legislative group's convention in Seattle, said the pressure to spend...

...[T]he Congressional Budget Office has now confirmed that federal revenues will rise this year by more than $262 billion-- the largest single-year increase in tax revenues in American history.... The first is that this windfall means that tax revenue as a share of the economy is climbing back to normal levels. As the nearby chart shows, at 17.5% of GDP this year, Uncle Sam's tax take is close to the 17.9% postwar average. And CBO estimates that as the economy continues to grow, the tax take will slowly rise throughout this decade to 17.8%. This is because more Americans are...

SACRAMENTO – As the Legislature sent Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a $117.5 billion state budget on a bipartisan vote yesterday, Democratic leaders said they are willing to talk about changes to keep future budgets in balance. The remarks were an encouraging sign for Schwarzenegger's attempt to negotiate a bipartisan compromise as an alternative to initiatives he has placed on the ballot for a special election Nov. 8. The Democratic leaders suggested that a plan to make midyear corrections, when the budget falls out of balance, could be a more limited alternative to the governor's sweeping spending-limit initiative. "Midyear corrections are one...

The budget proposal that Assembly Democrats unveiled Tuesday would set California on a (familiar) road to fiscal disaster. The route suggested: Reliance on a volatile revenue source as a way to accelerate education spending. The Democrats propose raising income taxes on wealthy Californians to give schools an extra $3.1 billion next year -- above the $3 billion increase the governor has already proposed. That is what schools say they are owed under last year's deal to suspend Prop. 98, the school funding guarantee. The governor had no legal obligation to give the money to schools, however. And the $3 billion...

Last year, the City Council in Baltimore faced a budget shortfall so bad that it considered laying off 186 city police officers, reducing some fire department operations and scaling back trash collection. Then it found an untapped honey pot: cellphones. Starting in August, the city began collecting $3.50 a month from each of Baltimore's 238,000 mobile phone subscribers. The extra income has helped to strengthen the city's finances and is expected to help the city fix up schools and trim the property tax. "I can't remember the last time we've had such an easy budget year," said Sheila Dixon, the...

State: 'No providers will get paid' By Victoria Wallack Statehouse Reporter Email this story to a friend AUGUSTA (May 4): The Department of Health and Human Services may have overpaid some Medicaid providers by as much as $51 million because its new computerized billing system still isn’t working –- an error that could mean the state will run out of money before the start of the new fiscal year. The overpayment, which is just an estimate, is more bad news for the department already being criticized for not paying providers enough because of its computer meltdown. “No providers will get...

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR OF the Pentagon's $419.3 billion budget request for next year, only about $10.5 billion - 2 percent - will go toward basic research, applied research and advanced technology development. This represents a 20 percent reduction from last year, a drastic cutback that threatens the long-term security of the nation. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld should reconsider this request, and if he does not, Congress should restore the cut. These research and development activities, known as the "technology base" program, are a vital part of the United States defense program. For good reason: the tech base is America's investment...

ALBANY, April 6 - With Gov. George E. Pataki and his closely guarded political aspirations headed off to Rome for the papal funeral, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer dropped a political bomb in Albany today, calling the budget document that state lawmakers passed last week full of holes that failed to solve the state's long-term problems in education, health care or economic development. "Maybe we have a budget, maybe it's on time, and the ambiguity arises from the fact that I think this budget deferred many, if not most, of the difficult issues that are confronting state government," Mr. Spitzer said....

For the fiscal year that will begin on July 1, state budget revenues are projected to increase by 6.8 percent, or more than $5 billion. This healthy growth in tax receipts is due to California's strong economy, which now is humming along very nicely following the anemic years of 2001-2004. Why, then, is Sacramento staring once again at a huge budget shortfall of $5 billion to $10 billion? Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger offers a succinct explanation. "We have $83 billion in revenues coming in. That is $5 billion more than last year, which is terrific news," the governor says. "But the...

OP-ED COLUMNIST If you want an image that captures what American politics will be like over the next few decades, imagine two waves crashing down upon us simultaneously, each magnifying the damage caused by the other. The first wave is the exploding cost of the entitlement programs. The second wave is the ever-increasing polarization of the political class. The polarization will make it impossible to reach an agreement on how to fix the entitlements problem. Meanwhile the vicious choices forced on us by entitlement costs will make the polarization even worse. The realities of the first wave - the looming...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - An adult film cable channel shot footage for a video at Pierce College, earning the college $5,000 at a time when schools in the state struggle with shrinking funds but raising charges that campuses should not be used for shooting X-rated films. The Spice Digital Network, a subsidiary of Playboy Enterprises Inc., used the Joe Kelly baseball field for two days in early March to shoot a racy promotional video that showed women and men in provocative attire. "It's what I would call easy money," Pierce President Tom Oliver said Thursday, adding that he had clearance...

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Washington PRESIDENT BUSH regularly calls on Congress to restrain spending. But he has yet to put his pen where his mouth is by using his veto - a blunt instrument, to be sure, but one that very few American presidents have failed to wield, especially during times of high deficits. Mr. Bush says he prefers a sharper veto power: the ability to cut spending programs within larger bills. He called for line-item veto power in his first press conference after his re-election and in his 2006 budget. But such a statute is not only out of reach -...

WASHINGTON, March 2 - Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, warned today that federal budget deficits are "unsustainable" and urged Congress to consider both spending cuts and tax increases as possible solutions. In his gloomiest assessment yet about the government's budget outlook, Mr. Greenspan warned that annual shortfalls were "unlikely to improve substantially in the coming years unless major deficit-reducing actions are taken." The Fed chairman emphasized that his strong preference was to reduce the deficit through spending cuts rather than tax increases. But he insisted that Congress needed to offset the costs of making Mr. Bush's tax cuts permanent....

SACRAMENTO — He quieted the Capitol infighting in his first months in office, but these days, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is sounding like an unabashed partisan prepared to rethink bipartisan agreements. In the early part of his term, Schwarzenegger forged difficult accords with the Legislature's Democratic majority, deploying his celebrity and persuasive powers in winning campaigns to strengthen state finances and revamp the workers' compensation system.But during last summer's budget fight, the fragile alliance frayed. A governor who had once cast Democratic lawmakers as "partners" began to ridicule them with the same zeal he had devoted to former Gov. Gray Davis...

A lawsuit filed Thursday by a conservative legal group stands a strong chance of adding $800 million to California's budget shortfall, experts say. The Pacific Legal Foundation lawsuit seeks to keep Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger from selling bonds to cover a scheduled payment into the pension fund for government employees. The sale of the bonds, which taxpayers would have to pay back over 20 years, was part of the governor's plan to balance the budget. "This is a borrowing without approval of the voters," said Harold Johnson, an attorney with the foundation, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Fullerton...

...The AG... says he is running for governor because New York is suffering a "crisis" and needs someone to address jobs, taxes and budgetary red ink.... His actions as attorney general have been one of the biggest job-killers in the state. ...The Pacific Research Institute examined state and regulatory regimes with an eye toward whether they attracted business investment or drove it away. New York was ranked dead last, right after California. In a study of the 200 largest metropolitan areas in terms of job-creation, New York ranked 169th. Matters were not improved this week when a gaggle of union-addled...

SACRAMENTO -- Frustrated by years of overspending and late budgets, Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, plans to introduce a major reform package today when the Legislature reconvenes designed to force lawmakers to pass a budget on time and limit spending. McClintock, considered one of the most fiscally conservative legislators, wants to force the Legislature to pass an on-time budget by June 15, or face the consequence of the governor's budget winning approval without legislative changes. But he would also lower the threshold to pass a budget to a simple majority, down from the current two-thirds requirement. "It's a comprehensive budget-reform...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Only three states - Maine, Delaware and Mississippi - are spending money on anti-smoking efforts at the minimum levels recommended by federal health officials, a coalition of public health groups said Thursday. Altogether, the states have set aside $538 million for smoking prevention for fiscal 2005, which began in October and runs through September. That is just a third of the $1.6 billion minimum the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say should be spent nationwide, says the report. The CDC's minimum funding recommendations for each state are based on population and other factors. The states are...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 - House and Senate negotiators have tucked a potentially far-reaching anti-abortion provision into a $388 billion must-pass spending bill, complicating plans for Congress to wrap up its business and adjourn for the year. The provision may be an early indication of the growing political muscle of social conservatives who provided crucial support for Republican candidates, including President Bush, in the election. It would bar federal, state and local agencies from withholding taxpayer money from health care providers that refuse to provide or pay for abortions or refuse to offer abortion counseling or referrals. Current federal law, aimed...

<p>WASHINGTON - For the first time in at least three years, the nation's governors are headed for their annual meetings here wearing something other than long faces.</p> <p>After one of the worst sieges of budget-cutting and general economic misery in decades, state governments are sensing a turnaround. With revenues once again on the rise, nearly half of the states say this year's tax receipts are likely to come in ahead of forecasts, according to a new survey by the National Conference of State Legislatures.</p>

<p>NEW YORK -- Return now to those stirring adventures of yore, when the world was menaced by ... the Thai baht. That, for those who have forgotten the summer of 1997, is a currency, then rapidly losing value.</p> <p>Few Americans noticed the knife-edge the world economy teetered on when Thailand triggered an Asian economic infection that threatened global convulsions. One reason that did not happen was U.S. leadership, as recounted by the treasury secretary at that time, Robert Rubin, in his memoir "In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington."</p>

<p>SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's initial efforts to tame California's out-of-control spending are unlikely to impose fiscal control on the state's prisons, which have overspent their budgets by $1.4 billion in the past five years, according to an Associated Press analysis.</p>

Unless Lexington beefs up its police force, the public can expect visible consequences such as the end of funeral escorts and the depletion of neighborhood support, Chief Anthany Beatty said yesterday. Although Beatty and police officers have made the pay and staffing issues well known, the chief yesterday offered the Urban County Council's intergovernmental committee a closer look at the ways residents could be affected. If your neighbor's dog is barking, or if your car has been smashed in a non-injury collision, the police might no longer respond, he said. "We've reached the point where we were hoping it never...

Budget woes haven't kept state and local governments from increasing their payrolls, according to Census Bureau figures released Wednesday. There were more than 15.6 million full-time state and local employees in March 2002, more than 200,000 higher than the previous March, according to an annual bureau survey. The total includes 11.4 million employees of local governments. Total payroll in March 2002 was over $52.3 billion, up roughly 6 percent. Positions at elementary and middle schools, including teachers, accounted for the largest payroll amount, about $19.6 billion for more than 6.2 million employees. That was up from $18.4 billion for 100,000...

Oregon has a long tradition of open, decentralized government with ample opportunities for public participation and guidance in agency decisions. -- the first sentence in the new Oregon dot gov webpage. (OMED: if you doubted my frequent warnings about the direction our state has been taking, the italicized statement above should rid you of that fantasy. Decentralized government? Oregon?) "This bill represents the largest tax increase in the history of Oregon!" -- Lars Larson Wednesday, August 20, 2003 – We have heard the local broadcasters say, “Republicans are responsible for the education funding shortfall.” Like just about everything except the...

<p>Nearly four years ago, Gov. Gray Davis signed a little-noticed piece of legislation that allowed state agencies, cities and counties to boost the retirement benefits of their employees, particularly peace officers and firefighters.</p> <p>Now that law, debated for only a few minutes in the frenetic closing days of the 1999 legislative session, has come back to haunt California. Those greatly improved retirement benefits -- and a stock market in the tank -- are about to devour billions of dollars that could otherwise be used for education, police and fire protection and road improvements.</p>

By Lori Montgomery Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, May 16, 2003; Page B01 As tax revenue continues to lag behind expectations, state fiscal analysts warned yesterday that Maryland will probably end the fiscal year with a deficit for the first time in more than a decade.. . .  At a time when Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) is threatening spending cuts that could force the state to lay off hundreds of workers, scale back health care for the poor and increase tuition at public colleges and universities, state Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Prince George's) called the new estimate...

Most people do not pay attention to state budget issues, particularly in a state other than their own, and so state budget debates rarely receive national attention. Nevertheless, New York Governor George Pataki has captured the attention of Americans who are seeking a leader who will not bow to the pressure of special interests and the media. Pataki submitted a $90 billion budget plan with no tax increases. However, the money hungry State Legislature is demanding $93 billion with tax increases to make up the difference. Democratic State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and New York State Senate Republican Majority Leader...

Mayor Bloomberg predicted yesterday that he'd be re-elected by "a very wide margin" - no matter what the polls show today - because things in the city will improve."In the end, the public will judge me when it comes time for re-election," the mayor said on his weekly WABC radio show. Bloomberg, who is up for re-election in 2005, offered a vision of a city where "crime has come down every year, schools have gotten better every year, the city's budget has been in balance so we don't have those devastating cuts that we would otherwise have." (???)"If we do...

....your big city newspapers and your television stations keep talking about shortfalls and cuts. Why is that? Simple. In the case of public schools, it is due to the cost of teachers. Every year, their salaries go up, these days faster than inflation. Portland school teachers above the novice rank make from sixty to ninety thousand dollars a year, including perks. That pay is based on a work "year" of some 180 days. Six months contain about 180 days. Every year their perks (non-salary benefits amounting to an additional third of their salary) jump up dramatically. PERS, the public employee...