sorry to get off topic, but I'm not sure Texas is a great example
'Texas' economic miracle beginning to tarnish (Serious financial trouble)
sify.com ^ | 3/19/2011 | sify.com
Posted on Saturday, March 19, 2011 12:31:46 PM by dragnet2
Some in Texas had talked tough about solving the state's budget problem by austerity alone, but lawmakers finally faced a hard fact: Texas is in serious financial trouble.
The severity of the state's $27 billion budget crisis was evident in the furrowed brows, sad eyes and pained expressions of legislators. They fidgeted in their seats as hundreds of teachers, parents and disabled people explained in testimony in recent weeks how proposed budget cuts would ruin their lives.
Then rhetoric hit reality this week. The result was the latest and most vivid example of a state taking steps it had fiercely resisted.
The Republican committee chairman's southern accent turned plaintive as he urged legislators who had campaigned on preserving the state's $9.2 billion Rainy Day Fund to now break that promise to ease the budget pressure.
"If you want to close this shortfall through cuts alone, you have to either (completely) cut payments to Medicaid providers, cut payments to school districts or lay-off a substantial number of state employees," said state Rep. Jim Pitts, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. "You would have to do these things immediately."
That deal will solve the budget problem â until Aug. 31. Lawmakers still need to cut another $23 billion from the next two-year budget.
Several months into the current legislative session, the government fiscal crisis across the nation is proving as difficult for states with a tradition of austerity as for those more accustomed to spending. Other conservative states are struggling with how to pay for keeping tough-on-crime corrections policies in place.
Perry, the state's longest serving governor, has signed every budget over the last 10 years and praised lawmakers for spending only what's necessary. Last week lawmakers pressed Perry's budget experts to help cut $4 billion from the current budget, but neither side could reach the goal.
So Perry relented, but his support for tapping the Rainy Day Fund now came with an ultimatum about the budget that begins Sept. 1.
That Republican leaders' posture in the financial crisis came in stark contrast to their campaign rhetoric.
Even though Texas' budget shortfall is among the worst in the nation, Perry says Texas remains an example for other states.
Democrats question why Perry and Republican lawmakers would tap the Rainy Day Fund to pay bills to creditors due in August, but not to save jobs.
But there is little for Democrats to do. Republicans hold every statewide office in Texas, two-thirds of the state House seats and 19 out of the 31 seats in the Senate. The main political division is between veteran conservatives and ultra-conservative Tea Party Caucus members.
State Rep. Debbie Riddle, a caucus member, said her constituents expect her to slash state spending. In the end, though, she voted to spend the Rainy Day Fund.
"I don't think there is one of us ... who has not had our heart hurt and even broken in two with a lot of the testimony we have heard," she said. To tap the Rainy Day Fund "is a long step for me, and I imagine it is for others here, too."
Pitts, the appropriations committee chair, acknowledged that making $23 billion in cuts for the next budget would be devastating.'
