Texas budget shortfall widens to $18 billion
Straus mentioned a number of possibilities for lawmakers to consider
including having unpaid furloughs for state employees
moving to a four-day workweek
freezing top-level state salaries
gas taxes and imposing a moratorium on proposed new programs
http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/05/11/2182263/texas-budget-shortfall-widens.html
((Sound familiar?))
I’m not disputing that there is a shortfall as of July for last fiscal year of the currently approved biennial budget. The current shortfall is due in part because we did not take federal money that we originally included as revenue in the budget.
The point is that the “shortfall” will not continue into the next biennial budget because Texas requires a balanced budget. Perry is already cutting spending this fiscal year to account for the shortfall from last fiscal year. If there is a shortfall at the end of this fiscal year, the next biennial budget must and will compensate for it.
We cannot, by law, enter into a new budget with a projected shortfall. We will reduce appropriations for the next fiscal year and increase revenue. And if we do not intend to take a specific amount of federal money next fiscal year, we will not include that amount as revenue like we did in the current budget.
California’s budget problems are decades in the making. Texas may be short this fiscal year, but it is not a result of decades of bad policy. That’s not to say we don’t have some bad policies, but we’re nowhere close to the level of budget troubles in California.