Free Republic

The Buck Should, Quite Literally, Stop Here : Only the Governor can prevent a tax increase Byron Schlomach, Goldwater Institute Daily Email, April 10, 2008 On Tuesday, the Senate barely passed a bill that would permanently repeal the County Equalization Tax (CET) on property. Unfortunately, a gubernatorial veto is very likely. In 2006, when the state was swimming in surplus funds, the tax was suspended for three years. The CET was one of the finance streams that flowed to schools. Since then, other state money has made up the difference to schools. Today, analysts for the legislature estimate the CET...

College students are getting a raw deal, a recent New York report asserted. The problem is they're taking too many classes from part-time, or adjunct, professors. But that same report unwittingly revealed something about how higher education is more culpable than it likes to admit when it comes to creating the problem. The issue is a huge one in higher education far beyond New York, with about half of the nation's college faculty now on part-time contracts. Adjuncts are cheaper for colleges, but they often lack the time and resources for focused teaching, and research shows students' performance suffers if...

Michigan has $350 million budget surplus Posted: Jan 3, 2008 02:06 PM Updated: Jan 3, 2008 02:06 PM LANSING, Mich. (AP) - Reduced spending and higher than expected tax receipts helped the state leap into the new year with a $350 million budget surplus. Michigan ended its fiscal year Sept. 30 with $259.1 million. Annual state financial reports also listed the School Aid Fund with more than $94 million. The surplus is for the 2006-07 fiscal year, a period in which a deficit of more than $1 billion was filled by delaying payments to state universities and community colleges, dipping...

Boeing's surplus store in Kent, a mainstay for people in need of a cheap computer or a hard-to-find power tool, will close by the end of this year. Boeing instead plans to sell its surplus items in bulk to wholesale buyers over the Internet and through a more traditional contracting process with business partners, said spokesman Dean Tougas. Boeing will develop a Web site over the next few months to support its online plans, he said. The store's final day will be Dec. 21. For 35 years it has sold just about anything that Boeing no longer uses, except aircraft...

U.S. states have been experiencing budget surpluses, mainly because of higher than expected tax collections, The New York Times reported. Lawmakers in more than 40 states have been using the surplus funds for tax cuts and infrastructure repairs, and setting aside extra funds for rainy day emergencies, the newspaper said Monday.

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Lawmakers will have to convene a special session because they did not pass a budget by midnight's adjournment deadline. Some lawmakers said they could have submitted a state budget on time, while others disagreed. Channel 3 Eyewitness News reporter Susan Raff reported the bottom line was that Republicans and Democrats were too far apart. Despite a constitutional amendment that sets a deadline, lawmakers are once again going into special session. In the past 10 years, the General Assembly has convened a special session every year except one -- last year. Special sessions cost roughly $10,000 for each...

Strong demand for cheap exports is driving economic growth in China China's trade surplus neared record levels in February - fuelling criticism that its currency is undervalued.The surplus hit $23.8bn (£12bn) for the month, more than nine times higher than a year earlier and the second largest on record, official data shows. China has resisted calls from the US to remove currency controls that limit the amount the yuan can rise or fall. The US argues that China keeps the yuan artificially cheap in order to boost its exports. According to Goldman Sachs analysts "the significant increase in the...

According to the U.S. Treasury's "Monthly Treasury Statement" -- which they release every month ten days into each month -- the year-to-date statement for the recent months of October, November, December, and January show a 10% increase in receipts taken in by the Treasury from the same months of the past fiscal year. In addition, the months of December and January show a surplus of $41 billion and $38 billion respectively. This is a total surplus gain of about $50 billion from the same months of the past fiscal year.

Despite the ongoing costs of US military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the outlook for the federal budget has grown substantially brighter. Tax revenues are rising much faster than spending, according to Treasury Department numbers released last week. The recent trend is strong enough that, were it to continue, the budget could move into surplus in barely a year, one economist calculates. Already, the federal deficit is shrinking toward about half the size that it has averaged since 1970, when analyzed as a percentage of gross domestic product. The shift reflects a strong economy, with higher incomes and corporate profits...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. military has sold forbidden equipment at least a half-dozen times to middlemen for countries - including Iran and China - who exploited security flaws in the Defense Department's surplus auctions. The sales include fighter jet parts and missile components. In one case, federal investigators said, the contraband made it to Iran, a country President Bush branded part of an "axis of evil." In that instance, a Pakistani arms broker convicted of exporting U.S. missile parts to Iran resumed business after his release from prison. He purchased Chinook helicopter engine parts for Iran from a U.S....

« Michigan Telecommunications Bill Protested Florida Supreme Court to Judge Two Stem Cell Research Amendments » Expected Budget Surplus in Minnesota in 2007 The 2007 budget for Minnesota has a surplus of anywhere from $650 million to $1 billion this year. Over the next two and a half years the surplus is expected to grow to $2.2 billion. This surplus has been built up from a deficit in 2003 of $4.4 billion. The excess budget money is expected to go to property tax relief, college tuition costs, health care, and to lessen the overcrowding in public schools. However, Governor...

About the easiest thing for a Minnesota politician to be is compassionate with someone else's money---usually yours! So as the leaders of the Census Bureau's 6th highest per capita tax state gather at the Capitol to once again bust any parameters on limited government and fiscal responsibility, it's time for the peasants to grab the pitchforks and declare loud and clear, "Not this time you don't!"

Minnesota finance officials expect the state treasury to run a $2.17 billion surplus through June of 2009. That includes a projected surplus of $1.038 through June of next year, and $1.132 billion for the following two years. "We've got some pretty good news here,'' Finance Commissioner Peggy Ingison said before she outlined the numbers at a Capitol news conference Wednesday. The economic report details tax and spending patterns. The news means GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty and a Legislature now in DFL hands will have extra money to devote to schools, public health care programs and, maybe, tax cuts.

SACRAMENTO – Escalating state spending combined with sluggish tax revenue from a deflating housing market will leave California with a $5.5 billion budget gap to close next year, the state's nonpartisan legislative analyst said Wednesday. The estimate offered the first glimpse of the budget challenge Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers will face in January. Somewhat easing the pain for lawmakers will be a larger-than-expected $3.1 billion surplus to carry over from the current year, thanks largely to stock market gains made by the richest Californians. That will leave the state with a net deficit of $2.4 billion, or about...

The State Duma on Friday gave preliminary approval to a 2007 budget that is expected to be 25 percent bigger than this year's, prompting worries of overspending and higher inflation as next year's elections near. The hike comes on top of a 40 percent increase this year, as the government spends windfall revenues created by the bonanza of high world oil prices. By a 343-94 vote with no abstentions, deputies passed the draft budget on first reading. Budget spending is to swell to 5.46 trillion rubles ($205 billion), or 17.5 percent of the country's gross domestic product. With expected revenues...

On Tuesday, the military will start destroying $32 million worth of planes sitting in storage in Hondo. "We've looked at all the options. This is the best option. This option costs the government no money," said David Smith, communications chief for the Air Education Training Command. Unless one counts the $60 million taxpayers originally paid for these 110 T3a Firefly planes parked at Hondo. The fleet was left to sit for nine years, after three fatal crashes at the Air Force Academy, despite numerous efforts to buy them. "We had buyers offshore for the entire fleet, and could have turned...

  Asia-Pacific China July trade surplus hits record $14.6bn BEIJING (Reuters) - Aug 10, 2006 China's trade surplus set a record in July for the third month in a row, the government said on Thursday, underscoring growing concerns among policy makers about China's economic imbalances. The customs administration said the surplus rose to $14.6 billion from $10.4 billion in July 2005.Economists polled by Reuters had expected the surplus to be unchanged from June's $14.5 billion.Cheng Manjiang, an economist with Bank of China International in Beijing, said the surplus may peak this quarter, especially if the government makes good on...

N.Korea 'Spending Hand Over Fist While People Starve' A Grand National Party lawmaker and member of the National Assembly's Intelligence Committee on Friday said North Korea’s budget structure means it can pour money into its missile program while its people are starving. The comments from Chung Hyung-keun came at a meeting of leading party members a day after the North slammed the South’s refusal to continue food aid until it returns to disarmament talks. "We understand that North Korea intends to build up to 17 more Taepodong-2 missiles,” Jung said. "Some people say each Taepodong-2 costs W60 billion (US$1=W954), but...

OLYMPIA - Try as he might, Victor Moore couldn't completely suppress a smile. For months, the state's budget director has cautioned that the surplus enjoyed today could be washed away in red ink next year. He initially figured that the supercharged economy couldn't keep generating enough cash to pay government's rising costs. On June 15, he learned differently. The economy can, and will, keep cash rolling in for a while longer. ChangMook Sohn, the state's chief economist, said there would be hundreds of millions of dollars more in revenue for the next budget than he had previously predicted. Enough, it...

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....