Budget Research Committee Discussion Thread

[CheeseWhiz]

This thread is for discussion between the three Budget Research Committeemen, Lt. Governor Ilikeverin, Senator PBrunsel and Governor CheeseWhiz.

I ask that everyone who is not part of the Committee to please keep comments short and to not spam the thread.

[CheeseWhiz]

Come on people!  We got a deficit here that isn’t just gonna fix itself.  I’m going to work on something after I get some answers to a few questions.

[The Duke]

Data on your deficit can be found on page one of the GM thread, the numbers are the accumulatyed deficits of the states in your region as of 2004.  Spending is the accumulated spending in the states of your region, and taxes are the accumulated taxes of your region.  So each state has a different tax system.  You swapped NM and MT since that data was published, but I'm pretty sure both had balanced bdgets, so its not really a big change.

[CheeseWhiz]

John, you’re the first person to give me any info on this problem, you just made my day

[CheeseWhiz]

Ilikeverin, PBrunsel....  are you there?

[ilikeverin]

No.  I am not here

[CheeseWhiz]

No.  I am not here

Well why isn't PBrunsel "not here" yet?

[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

[CheeseWhiz]

Okay, I want info on every states income, their expenses and their programs.

[PBrunsel]

O.K., i'm here. What must I do?

[CheeseWhiz]

O.K., i'm here. What must I do?

Get me the net profit of Iowa, and give me details on what programs their sponsoring.  Ilikeverin, do the same for Minnesota, I'll get info on Montana and we can work our way from there.

[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*

[PBrunsel]

Here is Iowa's 2005 Budget. It is quit in depth and it's very long and boring.

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

In short, Iowa borrows far too much, but we have sucessfully balanced our budget.

[King]

Here is Iowa's 2005 Budget. It is quit in depth and it's very long and boring.

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

In short, Iowa borrows far too much, but we have sucessfully balanced our budget.

They must have multiplied everything by 10 as Iowa can't be worth $5 billion.

[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

[PBrunsel]

We could handle these deficits by simply adding a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution. By making mandatory to balance our budget every year we would eventualy end our deficit. I will have to study the idea further, but I stand by this idea.

A district shoudl handle only two thing IMHO:

Regional Education and Mass Transit.

[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

[PBrunsel]

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.

[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.

[CheeseWhiz]

I looked all over for this info, how did you guys find it?

So, yeah, we're going to balance the budget, we just have to figure out how.

I'm open to any suggestions about what programs we should cut, I'll be reading up on these budget's through the week.  I'm also hoping to cut taxes sometime, but balancing the budget comes first, of course.

[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?

[PBrunsel]

verin, I aggree this is silly and poitless. When your the real Governor of Minnesota you can deal with this!

Wel we must do it, this is fantasy beaurocracy!

[CheeseWhiz]

Well, I’m very glad to see I’m not the only one who finds this stuff hard

I was just thinking, maybe we could write up something like this:

Midwest Budget Proposal

1. The Midwest Government will cut all funding.
2. Taxes will be raised to a 95% flat tax
3. Mwahahahahahaha

No, seriously, what if we did cut all the programs and just wrote new ones?  Do you think that would work?  Or would it be even harder?  Probably wouldn’t work, or would it?  Am I babbling?  Did you even bother reading to this point?  What is this smiley suppose to mean?  What should we really be funding?  Do we build Highways and the Federal Government builds interstates?  I can’t remember.  Are you still reading?  What does this smiley mean?  Are you seriously still reading?  This is fun, just typing nonsense... or is it?