January 11, 2005
Revenue Surplus?
By Karl-Thomas Musselman
If Craddick's statement today on the House website is any indication, looks like there won't be a shortfall for the legislature to deal with this session. Maybe we will have money to fund health and education?
"Comptroller Strayhorn is forecasting substantial revenue growth for the FY06-07 biennium, and the Legislative Budget Board staff will release its recommended budget within the next few days, which will be within the revenue predicted by the Comptroller. Although I have not seen the details of her estimate, it is encouraging to hear that the Comptroller anticipates significant revenue growth for the biennium compared to the situation we faced last regular session. Had we not held the line on spending in the face of the $10 billion shortfall last session, we probably would not have seen the kind of economic recovery that we are now experiencing and hope to see in the future. I look forward to working with the Governor and with my colleagues in the Senate to craft a budget that will maximize the positive impact on Texas' economy."
Posted by Karl-Thomas Musselman at January 11, 2005 06:57 PM
| TrackBack
No. Screw education. Screw health care.
All surplus funds go to that nefarious Dick Cheney and his evil company Halliburton via Tom DeLay! =)
How can this be? A Republican Governor, President Bush and a surplus? Did you say a surplus? What happened to the bad economy, things going in the wrong direction? Y'all must have been wrong. That's it y'all misled us. BOR misled us.
OK, Peter. Evidently you've forgotten the rosy projections Strayhorn made in '99 and '00 back when Governor Bush was running for President. Of course, after he fled the state for DC, as I recall, she modified those projections at some point.
Surely, surely, surely revenue projections (not exactly an exact science) would never be used for political gain. Yeah, right.
Reuters is reporting "another" surplus. It reported that the US government ran a $1B budget surplus in December, helped by a rise in corporate tax payments. The surplus compares with an $18B deficit for the previous year. Again this is not what Democrats were telling us a few months ago. All was bad, our President was taking us in the wrong direction. Must be some more of that "misleading" Democrats like to take about.
I'll bet a nickel that any new revenues will be devoted to (pick one more of the following than is fiscally sustainable):
(a) prisons
(b) tax cuts
(c) highways
I forgot (d), school vouchers.
