The Texas budget is in big trouble. Any thoughts from conservatives?

The Texas legislature only meets once every two years instead of always being in session like most other governing bodies. Texans like that! Keep them damn rascals away from the levers of government! Even an awful lib like me kind of likes it.

But the other shoe has dropped. Since they only create budgets every other year, we don't have solid budget surplus/deficit numbers ahead of time. It appears at this point that the state deficit may be as high as $25 billion over the next two years.

25!

Krugman points it out (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/opinion/07krugman.html), but the highlights:

1. Less than 20% of Texas public workers are unionized*, compared to over 75% in New York.
2. Texas ranks near the bottom in spending per student. That well is dry.
3. Texas ranks near the bottom in spending per person on Medicare/Medicaid. That well is dry.
3a. Oh, and Texas leads the nation in medically uninsured, so we can't just throw them off.
4. Our taxes are low, and there's no way on God's earth they're raising them. This is Texas after all.
5. Every area of Texas politics is overwhelmingly Republican and has been for decades.

If someone can tell me how we got here, I'd love to hear it. And it'll be interesting to see where they cut since the two most obvious (education and medical) are already cut to the bone.

*I am one of the few public employees covered by a public sector union. I've been a union rep in another union and I've never seen such a government friendly union as this one. With zero complaint from the union, we instituted voluntary furloughs last year and involuntary furloughs this year. I'm required to take 6 days without pay before June 1st. And our annual 3% raise has been ended without a fight from the union ("We must help the government in these trying times blah blah blah"). And while our health insurance plan is fantastic, we also pay much more than average. I paid 10% of my GROSS (seriously, think about that number) last year on my health/dental payments (not including copays).

[quote name='speedracer']If someone can tell me how we got here, I'd love to hear it. And it'll be interesting to see where they cut since the two most obvious (education and medical) are already cut to the bone. [/QUOTE]
Ummm...it's Texas?

Oh...and white people...LOLZ.

As an ignorant Northeast elitist, I think it's kinda like NH, but worse. Guns, bootstraps, and R FREEDUMS is pretty much the modus operandi. Not to mention the historical mythology of the state. But I believe that Texas is one of the few red states that actually pays more in taxes than it takes in. At any rate, marketing works and this is why people are borked.

Non story doesn't fit the Glibertarian storyline.

Lower federal tax rates so states can raise more revenue to cover their budgetary problems until they can get their houses in order.

[quote name='Feeding the Abscess']Lower federal tax rates so states can raise more revenue to cover their budgetary problems until they can get their houses in order.[/QUOTE]
LOLZ...how? By raising state taxes?

Yep. Lowering federal rates to offset the state hikes would make it palatable to conservatives. Bring the troops home to placate the liberals and offset the tax cuts.

Everybody wins.

Tax the shit out of firearms.


Ha....
Ha ha......
Bwahahahahahaha.......yeah I just had to have a laugh.

[quote name='Feeding the Abscess']Lower federal tax rates so states can raise more revenue to cover their budgetary problems until they can get their houses in order.[/QUOTE]
Rick Perry and the rest of the Texas Republicans have an image to uphold. They would slit their own throats literally before they slit their own throats politically by "raising revenue".

lol Texas

It's not true libertarianism. That's why it's not working. Texas still is forced to pay state Medicaid. Get gov't out of the way and let the free market fix it. Come the on.

You don't want real answers, do you, speed? I mean answers that will work - with Republicans in charge, lord knows legitimate avenues will happen (e.g., raising tax rates).

The real answer is this: you are ed. You as in speed, not the royal you. The echo chamber in the modern era has demonized unions and government as the problem. No matter how much you pay into your health premiums (tenpercentholyshit), no matter your wages, no matter your benefits, you and 20% of your state worker colleagues are labeled "UNION." In the modern political climate, you need nothing else to be a political villain.

You're going to lose some of everything: benefits, wages, days to work (more than your furlough has already demanded), health care, and so on.

Here's the real, genuine kick in the cock: the labor market overall is so shitty right now that you and most of your unionized ilk will lose so much, yet you lack the opportunities to say " you, texas" and go to the private sector for more money and benefits. Some of you will, and some of them will land great jobs. Others will come back to work, empty handed from their free-market experiences despite their quality as workers. Some of them won't be rehired - and the rest of you will be scared to death by the risk of the outside world that you'll accept those cuts and work on, disgruntled but employed.

There is one other thing that Texas could do (and all states should do) - but nobody ever brings this up, and it's even LESS likely to occur than a tax hike. Even in Texas. Hell, *especially* in Texas.

What could that be?


$25 Billion? I have to have a sardonic laugh about that. Weren't the Republican dumb bloggers crooning about Texas' financial state as recently as a few weeks ago? Aren't they still?

Have you never seen Friday Night Lights? Football is a ing religion in Texas. I'd be all for it personally, maybe some of those players will decide to actually focus on their education instead of nursing the false hope of going pro.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/College-footballs-profit-tops-cnnm-1519371386.html?x=0&.v=2

The University of Texas football program was once again the leader in both revenue, with $94 million, and profit, with $68 million.

Click to expand...

And Texas sucked this year, missing the bowl system all together. Trying to find info on Texas A&M and Texas Tech, two other programs that likely made a few million.

On average, college football pays for most every other college sport. Basketball is profitable for the big programs as well.

And yet, California, which is about the polar opposite of Texas, has an even higher deficit. If we were to look at California and Texas, what are the similarities between the two?

[quote name='UncleBob']And yet, California, which is about the polar opposite of Texas, has an even higher deficit. If we were to look at California and Texas, what are the similarities between the two?[/QUOTE]

Stupid governors?

[quote name='Feeding the Abscess']http://finance.yahoo.com/news/College-footballs-profit-tops-cnnm-1519371386.html?x=0&.v=2

And Texas sucked this year, missing the bowl system all together. Trying to find info on Texas A&M and Texas Tech, two other programs that likely made a few million.

On average, college football pays for most every other college sport. Basketball is profitable for the big programs as well.[/QUOTE]

The same article mentions TCU barely break even. I would imaged that outside of the big school they would not be making much.

Hmm. That's not just contrary to what I've read, but highly contrary.

There are undoubtedly some profitable programs - I should have specified that.

While I can't provide a literature review for you, I have to be exceptionally skeptical of that claim, especially for Texas. I don't doubt UT sports are profitable, I don't believe the $65M profit claim.

In my searches, I didn't find anything confirming my skepticism, and little reaffirming what you're posted, FtA - aside from other reports of the same data.

But! I did find this amazing government website: http://www.ope.ed.gov/athletics/Index.aspx

You can look up financials on dang near any school's athletics program. Click through to the "revenues and expenses" tab.

Which I did a cursory glance of. I looked up the University of Cincinnati, where I earned my grad degrees, and Ohio University, my first employer. Cincinnati did not turn a profit on athletics this year. But they didn't turn a loss, either. Their accounting says they broke completely even, and revenues minus expenses were -$0-. I find that extraordinarily difficult to believe. Ohio turned a $1.7m profit, which is another claim I am highly skeptical of - given insider knowledge to those institutions.

It smacks of creative accounting. First, I see nothing that accounts for the cost of travel for the teams, which is odd. It must be in there - nobody's foolish enough to overlook that. There are plenty of additional expenditures which are indirect and not included, in particular students who are paid by the university to tutor many athletes (and this is irrespective of many student athletes scholarships being a waste of funds, given dismal graduation/completion rates).

But the most insidious thing, to me, is the revenue category "not allocated by gender/sport." It says to me "we're counting every shirt, hoodie, shot glass, stuffed mascot toy of our college as revenue for sports." If you take that away, Ohio lost over $5 million last year. Cincinnati lost $10 million that year.

UT Austin, by these data, turned a profit of $29 million ($8.5 if you omit the "not allocated" category). Remarkably less than football altogether. The $68 million was simply the difference between the sum football revenues less football expenses, and you can confirm that for yourself looking at those numbers.

Man, this site is fun. I mean it.

At any rate, perhaps the answer is to eliminate all collegiate sports except for football and perhaps basketball? I dunno.

If nothing else, these numbers reek of highly falsified data that the government should spend a better job auditing. Unless you believe that TCU's football expenses and revenues were *precisely* $20,609,361. For both.

[quote name='UncleBob']And yet, California, which is about the polar opposite of Texas, has an even higher deficit. If we were to look at California and Texas, what are the similarities between the two?[/QUOTE]

They both are *huge* contributors to our ever-expanding incarcerated population.

Both have large problems with immigration.

Both, as states in the United States, have marginal tax rates on high-income earners that are too low, capital gains tax rates that are too low, and allow the federal government to neglect to close corporate tax loopholes - all flustering our national tax revenue, and thus contributing to the decline of federal funding for both states.

There are plenty of policy solutions to each of those concerns. Democrats are too scared to do much on #1 and #3, and have a wildly different solution to #2 than Republicans (who are, contrary to what you thought you were getting with your vote, also too scared to do much about that).

California has the highest state sales tax and one of the highest gasoline sales taxes. They ranked #6 for state income tax (in 2008). For comparison, Texas ranked #43. As of 2007, Californa had some of the highest Capital Gains tax rates. But this is all through quick Google searches (can link, if you'd like), so if you have information that differs from this, please share.

[quote name='UncleBob']And yet, California, which is about the polar opposite of Texas, has an even higher deficit. If we were to look at California and Texas, what are the similarities between the two?[/QUOTE]

They're both run by parties that don't really give a shit about fiscal responsibility? Did I win something?

Republicans and Democrats aren't trying to run this country. They're trying to win, baby! Beats me as to what they're winning. It's not like USC and Texas played for political control of the country in 2005.

[quote name='UncleBob']But this is all through quick Google searches (can link, if you'd like)[/QUOTE]

Please do. And offer percentages, not comparative rates (which are not particularly useful). Are they the highest in percentage of income tax, or in their revenue? You simply say they're #6, which doesn't do anything for this discussion.

Doesn't California have a unique form of ballot initiatives?

54vxd0qd3k

[quote name='docvinh']Stupid governors?[/QUOTE]

Stupid economy, California was more entrenched in the housing bubble than most other states and we are in trouble thanks to the collapse.

[quote name='UncleBob']California has the highest state sales tax and one of the highest gasoline sales taxes. They ranked #6 for state income tax (in 2008). For comparison, Texas ranked #43. As of 2007, Californa had some of the highest Capital Gains tax rates. But this is all through quick Google searches (can link, if you'd like), so if you have information that differs from this, please share.[/QUOTE]

Good job, you focused on certain Californian taxes and failed to look the per capita total tax rate. In this respect California ranks somewhere in the middle nationally last time I checked. Secondly all those fancy tax rates you listed are a holdover of conservative tax revolt or prop 13. The prop pretty much limited the cities and counties to only a couple of sources of income, sales and income and capital gains tax in order to float their budget (which prop 13 slashed in some areas by as much as 80 percent when implemented). Crappy tax cuts got us those high as hell taxes. I find it funny that Brown is the governor in charge now and speaking against the prop which was passed when he was originally in office as governor.

Why did you capitalize Capital Gains?

[quote name='mykevermin']Hmm. That's not just contrary to what I've read, but highly contrary.

There are undoubtedly some profitable programs - I should have specified that.

While I can't provide a literature review for you, I have to be exceptionally skeptical of that claim, especially for Texas. I don't doubt UT sports are profitable, I don't believe the $65M profit claim.

In my searches, I didn't find anything confirming my skepticism, and little reaffirming what you're posted, FtA - aside from other reports of the same data.

But! I did find this amazing government website: http://www.ope.ed.gov/athletics/Index.aspx

You can look up financials on dang near any school's athletics program. Click through to the "revenues and expenses" tab.

Which I did a cursory glance of. I looked up the University of Cincinnati, where I earned my grad degrees, and Ohio University, my first employer. Cincinnati did not turn a profit on athletics this year. But they didn't turn a loss, either. Their accounting says they broke completely even, and revenues minus expenses were -$0-. I find that extraordinarily difficult to believe. Ohio turned a $1.7m profit, which is another claim I am highly skeptical of - given insider knowledge to those institutions.

It smacks of creative accounting. First, I see nothing that accounts for the cost of travel for the teams, which is odd. It must be in there - nobody's foolish enough to overlook that. There are plenty of additional expenditures which are indirect and not included, in particular students who are paid by the university to tutor many athletes (and this is irrespective of many student athletes scholarships being a waste of funds, given dismal graduation/completion rates).

But the most insidious thing, to me, is the revenue category "not allocated by gender/sport." It says to me "we're counting every shirt, hoodie, shot glass, stuffed mascot toy of our college as revenue for sports." If you take that away, Ohio lost over $5 million last year. Cincinnati lost $10 million that year.

UT Austin, by these data, turned a profit of $29 million ($8.5 if you omit the "not allocated" category). Remarkably less than football altogether. The $68 million was simply the difference between the sum football revenues less football expenses, and you can confirm that for yourself looking at those numbers.

Man, this site is fun. I mean it.

At any rate, perhaps the answer is to eliminate all collegiate sports except for football and perhaps basketball? I dunno.

If nothing else, these numbers reek of highly falsified data that the government should spend a better job auditing. Unless you believe that TCU's football expenses and revenues were *precisely* $20,609,361. For both.

[/QUOTE]

I wouldn't doubt some creative accounting is in play.

I'm also fine with eliminating any collegiate sports programs that aren't self-sustainable. You'd piss off every women's activist group in America doing that (pretty much every women's college sports program is a drain), but there'd be quite a few men's programs on the block, too.

[quote name='mykevermin']Please do. And offer percentages, not comparative rates (which are not particularly useful). Are they the highest in percentage of income tax, or in their revenue? You simply say they're #6, which doesn't do anything for this discussion.[/QUOTE]

Here's the capital gains rate by state: http://www.thereibrain.com/realestate-blog/2007/10/capital-gains-tax-rates-state-by-state/

Here's the information where California is at "#6" - http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/sr163.pdf . It's not directly tied to the income tax alone, it refers to the overall state/local tax burden. Now, I'm not saying that California is too high/too low - just saying that they're quite the opposite of Texas on the scale of taxes.

If you want a state-by-state direct comparison of income tax rates, http://www.money-zine.com/Financial-Planning/Tax-Shelter/State-Income-Tax-Rates/ - California has the third-highest top rate - but, of course, without seeing how those rates fall, it could mean that hardly anyone pays it. However, meanwhile, Texas has no state income tax - the opposite side of the California coin.

http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/sales.pdf gives you the sales tax by state - while they don't tax food (damn, look at TN!), they do have the highest general merchandise sales tax rate on the chart. If you average in the local sales taxes within the state, California comes up at #2 (http://www.taxfoundation.org/UserFiles/Image/Fiscal Facts/FF196-maplarge.jpg).

4. Our taxes are low, and there's no way on God's earth they're raising them. This is Texas after all.

Click to expand...

Tough shit. Raise your damn taxes. Texas and every other state in the country is going to have to accept the fact that your taxes will need to be raised AND tax funded services will need to be cut in order to close most state budget deficits in a reasonable amount of time.

If that's too much of a problem for you, just keep listening to politician after politician that keeps spouting the idiocy that they can cut taxes or keep them low and NOT drive your state budget into a ditch.

Just remember, you're listening to someone who spends millions on a campaign to earn a job that only pays a few hundred thousand.

~HotShotX

Speaking of creative accounting, the Tax Foundation is a policy arm of the Republican party. They are an agenda-driven institution, and not to be trusted with data.

You guys are thinking too hard. The real solution is to do nothing and blame the Democrats.

Dude I want a tecate now.

Mmmmm. Tecate.

As for tax rates in Texas, politicians will never raise taxes because they would be voted out. It's a classic case of self-interest trumping responsibility.

So the answer then is to default?

that's the thing: they have to raise revenues somehow, and a $25B deficit isn't something you're going to be able to increase speeding tickets to cover.

There's no fat to cut, but they must cut fat.

So the union boys will be stripped of everything including their dignity, but that's not going to account for much of anything.

Then you'll have to either enter into woah-there-batshit-crazy territory (e.g., privatizing the entire education system, seceding from the United States), or you'll have to raise tax rates. They'll probably go all flat tax or fair tax, however - just shuffle the cards long enough to convince the public that they're accomplishing something, and not simply playing a game of monte carlo - and then the next governor of Texas will encounter a $50B budget deficit when Perry does not run for re-election, seeking instead to move onto national level politics. The entire thing will successfully be blamed on Democrats, despite no more than seven existing in the state by that year. Austin will become its own country.

That's the kicker, isn't it, fair-minded liberal types? That woah-there-ing-insanity is more likely to occur, and will be heralded as more reasonable, than any tax hike. Not just by the public, but the media, too. I can already hear Chris Matthews questioning the need for public education on "Fireball" or whatever his show is.

So we see california, new york, and new jersey have raised spending and raised taxes to bring themselves into a giant deficit. Texas has lowered spending and lowered taxes to bring them into a giant deficit.

Does this mean we all agree that there is a moderate level of spending and taxing to be done here?

[quote name='Knoell']So we see california, new york, and new jersey have raised spending and raised taxes to bring themselves into a giant deficit. Texas has lowered spending and lowered taxes to bring them into a giant deficit.

Does this mean we all agree that there is a moderate level of spending and taxing to be done here?[/QUOTE]

No. It means that the Party of Fiscal Responsibility doesn't really have an 'effin clue how to balance a budget. When you take that away, what do Republicans stand for? Banning gay marriage, slandering black single mothers, and fighting Roe v Wade?

[quote name='mykevermin']Speaking of creative accounting, the Tax Foundation is a policy arm of the Republican party. They are an agenda-driven institution, and not to be trusted with data.[/QUOTE]

Not sure why the Tax Foundation would have an agenda against the state of California, but, again, if you can provide alternative information that shows California on the lower end of the tax scale, that'd be wonderful.

[quote name='mykevermin']http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/the-tax-foundation-is-not-a-reliable-source/[/QUOTE]

Okay, I get that you don't think that the Tax Foundation is a reliable source and that they apparently have some kind of evil agenda against the state of California or something. Can you provide an alternative source that shows that California has a lower tax rate than most other states?

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/89702927.html

Hey, Census data!

[quote name='mykevermin']http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/89702927.html

Hey, Census data![/QUOTE]

I'm not sure if the colors are confusing to you, but it appears to me that Texas is near one end of the color chart while California is near the other end.

It's not that simple, hombre.

Do you want to compare it to Texas by itself? Or "most other states" as you requested two posts up? This moving target stuff is irritating.

[quote name='mykevermin']It's not that simple, hombre.

Do you want to compare it to Texas by itself? Or "most other states" as you requested two posts up? This moving target stuff is irritating.[/QUOTE]

I just want you to back up your claim that both California and Texas have tax rates that are too low, when Texas seems to be on the bottom end of the lower half, while California seems to be on the upper end of the upper half when it comes to tax rates by state. Unless you're saying that all states have too low of tax rates - which doesn't explain the states that aren't going belly-up.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/opinion/07krugman.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Whole thing. Read it.

Somehow conservatives will blame this on illegals.

[quote name='Msut77']http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/opinion/07krugman.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Whole thing. Read it.[/QUOTE]
Given that old story on textbook revisions in Texas, I don't really think they're worried about education, let alone how much they spend on it. Just cut it completely and let parents home school their kids like god intended.

[quote name='depascal22']Somehow conservatives will blame this on illegals.[/QUOTE]

Actually, Myke already did. Is he a conservative?

http://www.businessinsider.com/texa...tock+(ClusterStock)&utm_content=Google+Reader

Wow: Texas Deficit Estimate Comes In Worse Than The Worst Expectations

Bad news on the state of muni finances.

The Texas budget is expected to run a $27 billion two-year budget shortfall according to just-released state estimates.

That's worse than the $25 billion that Paul Krugman cited last week when he gleefully noted that a GOP bastion was facing deficit problems.

(Conservative pundit Kevin Williamson responded by saying that "insiders" were estimating a mere $11-$15 billion shortfall. Obviously those insiders were optimistic.)

In the first year, the state is expected to collect $72.2 billion versus expenditures of $87 billion.

Texas may still be in a better shape than states like Illinois, but this is a severe gap, and cuts to healthcare or education or higher taxes are coming.

Click to expand...

I couldn't help but notice that unions were left off that list. Guess its their fault every other time but this one.

And lol to cuts to health care and education in a state in the bottom 10 in both in spending per person. Good luck with that.

No comment on the "better than Illinois" part of that quote, I see.

Here in Illinois, they're promoting a "temporary" increase of the state income tax - almost doubling it. Yay.

[quote name='UncleBob']No comment on the "better than Illinois" part of that quote, I see.

Here in Illinois, they're promoting a "temporary" increase of the state income tax - almost doubling it. Yay.[/QUOTE]
To be honest, my first thought when I read that was "huh. Illinois is in trouble?" The sites I read are always talking about CA, NY, TX, and FL budgets.

Most every state is in trouble, just to varying degrees. Been tons of cuts here in Georgia, and the new Republican governor is talking big about making a lot more cuts as the budget is still way in the red.