|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
State Controller John Chiang said Friday that revenues for March totaled $6.4 billion, surpassing estimates in the 2014-15 Governor’s budget by $470.9 million, or 7.9%.
In his monthly report covering California’s cash balance, receipts and disbursements, Chiang said income taxes, corporate taxes and sales taxes received by the state last month were all above estimates.
“As employment in California nears its pre-recession peak, the state is seeing positive gains in many of its primary revenue sources,” he said. “As we enter the important month of April, all eyes will be on the State’s income tax receipts and whether they size up against budget estimates.”
Last week, the controller launched a new tax tracker site logging deposits from the state’s major taxes through the end of April. The site is updated multiple times a day, using the latest figures available from tax collection agencies.
March income tax receipts exceeded the latest expectations by $231.6 million, or 8.6%. Corporate tax receipts came in ahead of estimates by $130.6 million, or 9.5%. Sales and use taxes were $22.4 million, or 1.4%, above expectations in the governor’s 2014-15 proposed budget.
The state ended the month of March with a General Fund cash deficit of $16.7 billion, which was covered with both internal and external borrowing. That figure was up from last year, when the state faced a cash deficit of $15.2 billion at the end of March 2013.
OK. Let’s hurry up and see how we can waste this excess cash before the taxpayers figure out that they’ve been hoodwinked.
Hurrah! Now the governor can sunset Proposition 30!
But we know the government will never do that. They will grab all the money that they can.
If income is up, I see some things that should be done:
1) Pay the actuarial correct amount for CalPERS now.
2) Increase payments to CalSTRS so that is properly funded
Nice socialistic bent. The article should be entitled: “Despite Increased Revenue From Tax Weary Residents, The State Deficit Continues To Grow”. Never a line about overspending. There is a steady drain on this state of job producing entities and wealthy people and in a very short time, someone will step up and inform the populace of what the real economic situation is in this state. But right now Jerry and the boys are trying to find a good scapegoat and put out these rosy red herrings until they can agree on one. Watch for your mosquito abatement tax to double at the local level.
Some people just steadfastly refuse to receive and acknowledge good news. The sky just MUST be falling, or we might have to realize we’re wrong, and change our ossified minds!
To quote the late, great Janis Joplin: “Whoa! It just can’t be!” Except it Is.
Cognitive dissonance is a real, uh, ‘problem’ for you-all, eh? With a capital B.
Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NRzxu_Hak8
Guvnah, you must be a student of the new math now being taught in our schools. When the cash deficit goes from $15.2 B to $16.7 B, year over year, that means that despite revenues that surpass expectations, the amount we “owe” increased. A steadfast refusal to believe the truth is very troubling. Ms Joplin also wrote that “freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose”, and the democratic socialistic goal is for us to lose our freedom to the government. You know how much Obama loved Saul Alinsky, I believe jerry brown has bought in too.
I must confess that Saul Alinsky is also one of my all time HEROES!
VIVA SAUL! VIVA!
Saul Alinsky was a no-nonsense community organizer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Alinsky
Really? Tell me, hotshot — where did Reuters go wrong? http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/27/california-budget-idUSL2N0F321B20130627
“California ended a decade of budget deficits on Thursday as Governor Jerry Brown signed a $96.3 billion general fund budget that includes a surplus and modestly increases spending.
The budget is based on a deal struck earlier this month by Brown and fellow Democrats who control the legislature. It is the third consecutive on-time budget he has signed – a sharp contrast to the routinely late budgets during the previous decade.
The spending plan for the 2013-14 fiscal year beginning on Monday marks an increase from the current fiscal year’s $95.7 billion general fund budget and includes a surplus of $872 million and an emergency reserve of $1.1 billion.”
And do it with verifiable linkage to the web, please.
Guvnah,
I think what you are missing is our long term and current unfunded pension liabilities. Huge numbers.
Ah, yes — complicated subject, which makes it fodder for fear-mongers. Fact is, that figure is a projection, not a debt. It rises or falls practically at-will, according to some simple, though unfamiliar numbers manipulations.
But that inherited number is improving, too — despite the bleatings that Dems are captive to the public unions. But take cover! The sky must be falling … somewhere … mustn’t it?
I wish I had some pithy comments regarding how great our current legislature is performing. But, I’ve got to return a call from my Great Aunt in Bakersfield and let her know that those nice people from the government, who have been asking to buy her land for the “bullet-train to nowhere,” really do have the money to pay her.
I expect the new budget will include all of the property tax funds stolen from local school districts. The total comes to about $7 billion annually that’s allocated to schools, but spent on non-education related expenses.
I expect all of the area parcel taxes are also unnecessary remnants of a bygone era of Republican governors, stealing local education funds, and will die off this year too.
Guvnah,
You see like a bright guy. What do you think should done with our unfunded pension liabilities. Should we figure out a way to address them or just ignore them like many others have done and just kick the can down the road? GM, United and others did.
First thing you do is what you Don’t do: panic.
Second, you look to history and see that this Projection has been much bigger than it is today, and it has disappeared before, to the point where Gov Wilson (GOP) tried to raid the funding to pay for His operating deficits.
Third, you see that it is currently trending downward at a significant pace.
Fourth, you pass pension reform, which the Dems did a few years ago, and will probably have to do again — because taxpayers were asleep at the switch when these pensions were bargained-for.
Fifth, you pick up all these pieces of the sky and put ’em back where they belong.
The “Dems” are credited with pension reform. Reforming the pension system (which isn’t fully reformed, even the guvnah agrees) that the 1999 legislature wrecked. When Davis was promised that increasing pensions retroactively wouldn’t cost the taxpayers any money, it wasn’t the taxpayers who were asleep at the switch, it was the legislature who approved it, and Governor Davis who signed off on it
http://calpensions.com/2010/07/27/sb400-pension-boost-uncanny-forecast-unheeded/
What we saw subsequent to this was localities, counties and cities all over the state were under pressure to match these changes for their employees, lest the best and brightest would go off and find a state job. And once that ball got rolling, it sped up, because the bigger cities gave away better pensions, and other nearby localities followed suit.
The REAL squeeze occurred when the housing crisis hit after multiple economic downturns. The state then turned to counties and cities (who were already suffering) and told them they needed to backstop the underperforming investments of CalPERS.
http://www.caltax.org/member/digest/Apr2003/4.2003.Taylor-PensionCrisisSwampsCitiesCounties.02.htm
These are the “projections” that Guvnah refers to above. The so-called “fodder for fear-mongers”. Look at what the state is NOW demanding from counties for funding of CalPERS. Not projections, real money the state wants RIGHT now.
http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2014/02/18/calpers-moves-to-hike-contributions-to-cover-retirees-longer-lives/
The “Guvnah” & the Democratic supermajority in Sacramento won’t really touch the employee pensions. They have made some modest reductions that affect new employees, which reduces some of the projections far in the future, and tout this as reform. More smoke & mirrors
And more smoke and mirrors from the Democrats to show a “surplus”. Change the accounting rules and pretend we do not owe the retiree health care plan $3 billion right now.
As the article states, a business would not be allowed to simply switch accounting methods in order to make the books look better. But for Gov Brown and the Democrats, no problem. Nothing to see here, move along
hotair.com/archives/2014/04/14/california-budget-surplus-nope-not-so-much/