Budget Research Committee Discussion Thread

[ilikeverin]

No.  I am not here

[ilikeverin]

XTREME BUMP!!!

[ilikeverin]

Regional Deficits, as projected for this fiscal year (in millions)
Midwest        $1,900

Regional Deficits Per Capita
Midwest          $68

I suggest we use the Minnesota budget as a template, because we're big and cool

Actually, it wouldn't be bad.  We're known throughout Atlasia for our high standard of living

[ilikeverin]

Minnesota State Budgets Home Page

Note that the 2005 Budget isn't on that page already.

Also, I can't get the 2004 'Budget At A Glance' pdf opened.

EDIT: OK, I can open it in *shudder* IE *shudder*

[ilikeverin]

The Minnesota budget is very confusing.  We seem to have two budgets... kind of.  We have a General Fund and a normal budget, and I don't know how the two are connected... The General Fund is the only thing that has taxes divided by how the taxes are collected (Income Tax, Sales Tax, etc.) which would be useful if we wanted to raise/lower taxes.

I'm so confused :S

[ilikeverin]

Budgets:
Montana- Legislative Budget Analysis (I believe that's their budget; Montana's state website is down right now so I can't check to see if they have one there )
Wyoming- Wyoming Budget Division
Colorado- Office of State Planning and Budgeting
North Dakota- Office of Management and Budget
South Dakota- Governor Rounds's Budget Report
Nebraska- Department of Administrative Services (doesn't have much, maybe there's a better page?)
Kansas- Kansas Division of the Budget (info is scattered around site)
Oklahoma- Oklahoma Office of State Finance (I think it's under 2004 Comprehensive Budget Report)
Minnesota- Minnesota Department of Finance
Iowa-

http://www.dom.state.ia.us/state/budget_proposals/files/FY05/BudgetBook/Approp_report.txt

[ilikeverin]

A balanced budget deficit means that we'd actually need to balance our budget... budgets don't balance themselves as far as I know

And that is the purpose of this thread

[ilikeverin]

A balanced budget deficit means that we'd actually need to balance our budget... budgets don't balance themselves as far as I know

And that is the purpose of this thread

Well I still stand by the need of a Balanced Budget Amendment, but that has always been a fetish of mine.

Don't worry, I think I could support it too.

[ilikeverin]

OK, I tried cuttin gthe budget from all of the Governor's and all that jazz (administration and such) because we only need 1 state's budget for that, not 10!

Deficit...............$1,900 mil
Spending Cuts
Montana...........$7.038 mil
Wyoming..........$56.634 mil (err, they have a big homeland security budget >P total minus homeland security is about $10.108 mil)
Colorado..........$10.428 mil, I think
North Dakota...$4.491 mil
South Dakota...$35.213?!? mil
Nebraska.........$9.287 mil
Kansas.............$?, though the Capital Budget was $567.029 mil
Oklahoma........$2.478 mil
Minnesota........$43.9
Iowa................$1.635
Total Cuts........$171.104
New Deficit.......$1,729 mil

Argh, this is so confusing.  I basically cut the Governor's Office... and that deals with other things besides things directly related to administration, apparantly...

Oh gosh, so confused has John Ford realized he's given us an impossible challenge?

[ilikeverin]

No, seriously, what if we did cut all the programs and just wrote new ones?

Then we'd have a lot of writing to do.

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No.

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Yes; there would be a lot of programs to write and we'd probably forget some.  It's a good idea in theory, though.

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See above.

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Now you are.

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Yes.

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It's happy

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Education!

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I believe so.  I think the Federal Government builds Interstates and Federal Highways, and we can build whatever we darn well want!

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Yes

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Frustrated/impatient

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Yes.

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What a philosophical question!

[ilikeverin]

I had a wonderful idea on how to get rid of our deficit! I'll work for free! No, I'm not kidding, I'd actually be willing to give up my salary for our Region

Yes, I already thought of cutting all of the Governors' budgets but teh cheapest, so I guess now we'll be cutting all of the Governors' budgets

I think that makes our fdeficit about $1,000,000 less.

Another idea would to be to cut funding for maintainance of state capitals, as we only need to pay for one.

[ilikeverin]

Well, currently we are still paying for 9 governors & lieutenant governors (assuming there are Lt. Governors in every state; 9 governors figure is from John Ford merely adding all of our budgets together)

So we can cut more

[ilikeverin]

Yeah, I figure we can just use the cheapest state's administration costs and cut the rest.

The problem is computing which state is the cheapest (probably Wyoming, but ya never know...)

[ilikeverin]

Ok, this isn't going to be perfect, but it'll be close.

Amazingly, most states in the Midwest (and in the country at-large) don't like to give out employee salary information or pension numbers.  Kansas seems to be the only state that does, so I'm basing some of this off that.

If I am estimating correctly, the total budgets of the 10 Midwest states come to being about $150 billion.  (John Ford can correct me here if he wants to).

Government employee spending (in Kansas at least) comes to being roughly 16% of the state budget.

So, if you were to cut state government employee salaries by 5%, according to my math, you would save $1.2 billion.

Once again, I'll listen to objections, because I may have calculated this wrong.

Just doing that would cut our deficit by 63%

[ilikeverin]

Ok, this isn't going to be perfect, but it'll be close.

Amazingly, most states in the Midwest (and in the country at-large) don't like to give out employee salary information or pension numbers.  Kansas seems to be the only state that does, so I'm basing some of this off that.

If I am estimating correctly, the total budgets of the 10 Midwest states come to being about $150 billion.  (John Ford can correct me here if he wants to).

Government employee spending (in Kansas at least) comes to being roughly 16% of the state budget.

So, if you were to cut state government employee salaries by 5%, according to my math, you would save $1.2 billion.

Once again, I'll listen to objections, because I may have calculated this wrong.

Just doing that would cut our deficit by 63%

That is across-the-board.  I would say across-the-board cuts are probably not the best idea.  John Ford has presented me targeted cuts in salaries that will produce less revenue, but will be responded to much better by government unions.

Well hmph