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JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Turns out that cutting was the easy part. (You know, I think these journalists are lazy, and therefore make lazy assertions like this. Checking this stuff is not that hard, although I will admit that finding concise data is somewhat difficult. According to the State of Missouri website, Missouri's operating budget looks like this:
(These numbers were compiled in 2011. You will note that the totals go up every year except for the 2012 projection. Jumping over to here, we find that the Missouri legislature passed a $23.2 billion budget for 2012, and $24 billion for 2013. Governor Jay Nixon is now outlining plans for a $25.7 budget for 2014. So, do you see any cuts of any kind in these numbers?) Now Republicans who control a majority of the state capitols in the United States face a far greater philosophical dilemma — what to do with all the money when an improving economy suddenly creates a surplus in revenues. (Isn't this odd? The Republicans demonstrated that by restraining government slightly, without actually cutting budgets to a level that is lower than prior years, will produce increased revenue. And this is a problem for the REPUBLICANS?
The word "Democrat" doesn't even appear in the article, but it's the Democrats that have the real problem. The fairy tale they've been preaching for the last 50 years has been unveiled as false! They have told us unrelentingly that cutting government spending will cause the economy to plunge. The media have followed right along with this narrative. But it isn't true!
We must also note that the article attributes the revenue bonanza to the improving economy. This is an editorial interpretation that does not belong in a news article. Indeed, the article has it backwards. The fiscal restraint shown by Missouri legislature is what caused the economic uptick.)
Save it? Refund it though tax cuts? Or spend it?
Though they won majorities in more than half the statehouses on principled platforms of making government smaller, some Republicans now are feeling tremendous pressure to spend newfound money on roads, buildings and schools that had been neglected or cut during the recession-induced downturn of recent years. (Um, yeah. Big spending Democrats, who cannot countenance even the thought of spending less money, are certainly the ones supplying the pressure. But more to the point, I am absolutely, positively sure, without even having to research it, that there have been zero cuts in any state anywhere for roads, buildings, and schools.)
“Everybody wants that money,” said North Dakota Senate Majority Leader Rich Wardner, where an oil industry boom has fueled one of the largest per capita budget surpluses in the nation.
Only a few states still face budget difficulties (all Democratically controlled) several years after the Great Recession forced widespread cuts to public education and social services, according to a new report by the National Conference of State Legislatures. (No, no, no! There have been no cuts! None! Nada! This is a total fabrication, but it fits the Leftist narrative.) To the contrary, a growing number anticipate that they will finish the 2013 fiscal year with surpluses, some totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.
That has created new tensions in places such as Michigan, Missouri and Texas, where GOP majorities are wrestling with the morality of spending money. ("Wrestling with the morality of spending money." Whaaa? The GOP is doing no such thing. This is hyperbole and total nonsense. That's what government does, spend money. The fact that they have "extra" money only means that the people have been overtaxed. It's their money. There is no issue regarding the morality of spending money.)
“I like to save money, I like to keep it in the bank, I like to give it back to the taxpayers,” said Missouri House Budget Committee Chairman Rick Stream, a self-described fiscal conservative from suburban St. Louis. “But sometimes, you also have to spend money on big capital improvements to move the state forward.” (Sometimes? How about "all the time?" This has what government has been doing for decades. Isn't interesting that in the context of showing a surplus that people like this guy simply repeat the same leftist talking points as if nothing has happened? He simply ignores the contradictory information and keeps to his parroted meme.)
Tax revenues that are running more than 11 percent above last year have given Missouri’s largest Republican majority since the Civil War a budget surplus that they estimate at more than $400 million. (Again, note how the presentation skews the perspective. The Republicans were not "given" anything by the economy. They enacted legislation with budget priorities and spending levels that created a surplus.) As recently as a few weeks ago, Stream adamantly opposed spending much of that money. But he now has agreed to use about $120 million to construct an office building in Jefferson City, make repairs to the Capitol and state parks and draw up designs for a new mental hospital. Through such spending now, he said, the state will “save a lot of money down the road.” (It is mismanagement to neglect valuable assets like public buildings and infrastructure. Any prudently run organization puts a line item in their budget for maintenance and repairs. To not do so is willful neglect. These government types purposely allow these things to deteriorate because they know they can use them as crisis opportunities. They want to manipulate taxpayers into ponying up more dough to fix these neglected assets.)
How states choose to handle their surplus revenues will provide a good first test of whether Republicans can make the cuts they enacted during tough times stick during better times, or whether government will return to its pre-recession levels. Those decisions could depend on whether lawmakers view the financial influx as lasting.
A recent Rockefeller Institute of Government report warned that the surge may be blip caused by wealthy taxpayers taking profits in 2012 to avoid getting hit by a federal tax hike in 2013.
The save-verses-spend conflicts are mounting in a number of states.
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder — a Republican who is a former accountant — is pushing to sock away more money in a state savings account that already is at its healthiest level in about a dozen years. But some in the Republican-led Senate have other GOP-friendly uses for the money.
A revenue surge also has stirred turmoil among Texas Republicans, who are especially zealous about small government. After previously cutting $15 billion from the state budget, lawmakers convened in 2013 to learn they had $8.8 billion more in revenues than projected.
With the state at its constitutional spending limit, the Texas Senate wants to ask voters to approve using $2 billion to develop more water resources, $2.9 billion for roads and bridges and $800 million for public schools. But tea party conservatives, along with Gov. Rick Perry, are calling for tax cuts. Perry says the state already spends plenty on education, even after it cut $5.4 billion from the schools’ budget in 2011.
“We have challenges when we don’t have money in this legislative body, and we have even bigger challenges when we do,” said Texas Rep. Brandon Creighton, a Republican from Conroe.
Save it? Refund it though tax cuts? Or spend it?
Though they won majorities in more than half the statehouses on principled platforms of making government smaller, some Republicans now are feeling tremendous pressure to spend newfound money on roads, buildings and schools that had been neglected or cut during the recession-induced downturn of recent years. (Um, yeah. Big spending Democrats, who cannot countenance even the thought of spending less money, are certainly the ones supplying the pressure. But more to the point, I am absolutely, positively sure, without even having to research it, that there have been zero cuts in any state anywhere for roads, buildings, and schools.)
“Everybody wants that money,” said North Dakota Senate Majority Leader Rich Wardner, where an oil industry boom has fueled one of the largest per capita budget surpluses in the nation.
Only a few states still face budget difficulties (all Democratically controlled) several years after the Great Recession forced widespread cuts to public education and social services, according to a new report by the National Conference of State Legislatures. (No, no, no! There have been no cuts! None! Nada! This is a total fabrication, but it fits the Leftist narrative.) To the contrary, a growing number anticipate that they will finish the 2013 fiscal year with surpluses, some totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.
That has created new tensions in places such as Michigan, Missouri and Texas, where GOP majorities are wrestling with the morality of spending money. ("Wrestling with the morality of spending money." Whaaa? The GOP is doing no such thing. This is hyperbole and total nonsense. That's what government does, spend money. The fact that they have "extra" money only means that the people have been overtaxed. It's their money. There is no issue regarding the morality of spending money.)
“I like to save money, I like to keep it in the bank, I like to give it back to the taxpayers,” said Missouri House Budget Committee Chairman Rick Stream, a self-described fiscal conservative from suburban St. Louis. “But sometimes, you also have to spend money on big capital improvements to move the state forward.” (Sometimes? How about "all the time?" This has what government has been doing for decades. Isn't interesting that in the context of showing a surplus that people like this guy simply repeat the same leftist talking points as if nothing has happened? He simply ignores the contradictory information and keeps to his parroted meme.)
Tax revenues that are running more than 11 percent above last year have given Missouri’s largest Republican majority since the Civil War a budget surplus that they estimate at more than $400 million. (Again, note how the presentation skews the perspective. The Republicans were not "given" anything by the economy. They enacted legislation with budget priorities and spending levels that created a surplus.) As recently as a few weeks ago, Stream adamantly opposed spending much of that money. But he now has agreed to use about $120 million to construct an office building in Jefferson City, make repairs to the Capitol and state parks and draw up designs for a new mental hospital. Through such spending now, he said, the state will “save a lot of money down the road.” (It is mismanagement to neglect valuable assets like public buildings and infrastructure. Any prudently run organization puts a line item in their budget for maintenance and repairs. To not do so is willful neglect. These government types purposely allow these things to deteriorate because they know they can use them as crisis opportunities. They want to manipulate taxpayers into ponying up more dough to fix these neglected assets.)
How states choose to handle their surplus revenues will provide a good first test of whether Republicans can make the cuts they enacted during tough times stick during better times, or whether government will return to its pre-recession levels. Those decisions could depend on whether lawmakers view the financial influx as lasting.
A recent Rockefeller Institute of Government report warned that the surge may be blip caused by wealthy taxpayers taking profits in 2012 to avoid getting hit by a federal tax hike in 2013.
The save-verses-spend conflicts are mounting in a number of states.
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder — a Republican who is a former accountant — is pushing to sock away more money in a state savings account that already is at its healthiest level in about a dozen years. But some in the Republican-led Senate have other GOP-friendly uses for the money.
A revenue surge also has stirred turmoil among Texas Republicans, who are especially zealous about small government. After previously cutting $15 billion from the state budget, lawmakers convened in 2013 to learn they had $8.8 billion more in revenues than projected.
With the state at its constitutional spending limit, the Texas Senate wants to ask voters to approve using $2 billion to develop more water resources, $2.9 billion for roads and bridges and $800 million for public schools. But tea party conservatives, along with Gov. Rick Perry, are calling for tax cuts. Perry says the state already spends plenty on education, even after it cut $5.4 billion from the schools’ budget in 2011.
“We have challenges when we don’t have money in this legislative body, and we have even bigger challenges when we do,” said Texas Rep. Brandon Creighton, a Republican from Conroe.
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