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The Marshalltown Times Republican did a story on the freshman legislators in the area. One of the newly elected legislators is Republican Rep. Annette Sweeney. Sweeney said she was surprised by the irresponsible spending.
The current budget issues was caused when the State revenues were lower than expected. Democratic leaders knew there wasn't going to as much money to go around this year because of the programs created the past two years. Then revenue estimates came in lower.One of the biggest things Sweeney said has to be dealt with is the budget and looking at all the ramifications.
"We've been told we're looking at a 6.5 percent cut. People are assuming it's 6.5 percent across the board but it's not," she said.
She noted that one agricultural area is looking at approximately a 25-percent cut, while other areas of the budget may be cut less than 1 percent.
"Irresponsible spending has been the biggest surprise," Sweeney said. "We heard about it during the campaign but it's really hit home now that I'm here and nobody wants to take responsibility for it."
We don't have irresponsible spending, we have lower than expected revenues.
4 comments:
"Irresponsible spending" = spending more then you have.
The problem with governmental budgeting is the assumption on the part of legislatures that they will automatically have more money next year then they have this year. It seems safer to base a budget off the actual tax receipts from the year before. Some years their may be a surplus, which could then be saved for years when there's a shortfall.
They enact legislation and spending for next year without having those revenues in yet.
Something Democrats did the last 2 years was fill up the rainy day fund to the highest level ever because there was a surplus. Some of this money is being used for flood relief.
That was sort of my point. I realzie they budget based on projected revenues for the next fiscal year. My argument was instead of using projected revenues, which always seems to justify an automatic increase of total budget spending, base in on -actual- tax receipts from the current fiscal year. That is...if you only collected 50 billion in taxes last year, you can only spend 50 billion on the budget next year.
And yes, I do applaud filling up the rainy day fund.
Back to the topic of yor post, I would note that is sounds like what Ms. Sweeny is calling "irresponsible spending" seems more like spending priorities that she happens to disagree with.
The TR ran an article today where Rep. Sweeney and Rep. Lance Horbach (both Republicans) complained about spending, complained about the budget cuts, and complained about possible tax increases. Republicans are once again pointing out the problem, but fail to have any ideas on how to solve it. Instead they are against everything and anything.
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