Uh-oh

03 Wednesday Dec 2008

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

Missouri’s budget is likely to be $340 million in the red by June 30.

That was the bottom line this morning from former Sen. Wayne Goode, who is analyzing the state’s financial situation for Gov.-elect Jay Nixon. Goode, a former senator from St. Louis County, delivered his grim assessment in a conference call with reporters.

The numbers mean that Nixon, who will be sworn in on Jan. 12, will likely have to wield his budget axe immediately. By law, the state cannot run a deficit.

Goode wouldn’t speculate on how Nixon would cover the budget gap, saying only that the governor-elect is working on “efficiencies” and will announce some initial steps to control spending within the next few days.

I’ll make sure to evaluate tapes about World War I trench-warfare as preparation for the 2009 General Assembly Session. Let’s be honest, it might be bowling-shoe ugly.

6 thoughts on “Uh-oh”

hotflash said:

December 3, 2008 at 2:45 am

The kind of warfare where everyone dies and no one wins.

Loading...

Reply
Michael Bersin said:

December 3, 2008 at 5:00 am

…speaking on the state budget in Independence, Missouri on March 25, 2008:

…We are in a budget situation in the state of Missouri that, I’m just going on so long, I really apologize, but I’m gonna make one more point…In 2001 general revenue to higher education in the state of Missouri was nine hundred and sixty million dollars. 2001. In 2008. We’re now in the 2008 budget cycle, general revenue to higher education in the state of Missouri is nine hundred and thirty six million dollars. A reduction of twenty four million dollars despite the fact that we’ve gone forward by seven years. We fell back in nominal terms, nominal dollar terms by twenty four million dollars. In real dollar terms, which mean you put, you pump a higher ed inflator through there which is about, I dunno, say eight percent, um, we are seven hundred and twenty five million dollars behind where we were in 2001 in higher education.
The reality is, I mean, we can pretend it’s otherwise, but Missouri is the 46th lowest taxing state in the country. We are never going to catch up to the high water mark that Bob Holden hit in 2001. It’s just never gonna happen. We can try. And we should try. But it’s never gonna happen. I mean, it’s, once you fall behind by a billion dollars in a twenty billion dollar budget, we can all pretend it can happen, but it can’t happen.
Let me give you one other statistic. Because this is so fascinating, hardly anybody really recognizes this about the state budget. We take in two hundred seventy million dollars more each year then we did the last year. So, know you start to understand the consequences of falling a billion dollars behind. We only take in two hundred seventy million dollars more this year then we did last year. Of that two hundred and seventy million dollars, two hundred and forty million is immediately taken up by mandates. That means inflation in pharmaceuticals, inflation in Medicaid, the heating costs that it keeps, that it takes to warm the Capitol during the winter. Two hundred and forty of the two hundred and seventy is immediately gone. That means in any given year we’ve got about thirty million dollars in discretionary money to change the course of history with. Now you understand the consequences of falling a billion dollars behind in just the higher education budget, much less the k-12 budget. When you’ve only got thirty million dollars how can we ever catch up in higher education…?

Loading...

Reply

Show Me Progress

~ covering government and politics in Missouri – since 2007

Uh-oh

Like this:

6 thoughts on “Uh-oh”

Leave a Reply to hotflashCancel reply

Share this:

Like this:

6 thoughts on “Uh-oh”

Leave a Reply to hotflashCancel reply

Discover more from Show Me Progress