Doing the math....
Late last month, Gov. M. Jodi Rel sent legislative leaders a mitigation plan to address the state's current fiscal year's projected $343 million deficit. She also wanted the lame-duck legislatue to return to Hartford last Friday to act on her plan.
The Democratic leadership passed on the opportunity to make another trip to Hartford, especially since the new legislative session would begin five days after the date she picked. So they instead decided to act on her plan next week....Wednesday, Jan. 14.
That's an interesting date, because the following day, Thursday, Jan. 15, is the deadline for fourth quarter tax payments. That means, when the lawmakers take up the governor's proposal -- that deals with addressing the projected $343 million shortfall -- they won't know exactly what the latest figures on projected income tax revenues are (because that won't be known until the day after.)
The fourth quarter income tax filings will reflect the major collapse of Wall Stret investsments that took place in October....when the market hit those all-time lows. Most economists suggest that it's likely those numbers (the Jan. 15 filings) will be bad -- and could result in boosting the projected deficit higher than the current $343 million thinking.
If that's true....then what happens in Hartford next week is this:
The legislature looks over the governor's plan, adopts a good portion of it -- but probably not all of it -- so there will still be a deficit in currently year spending when all is said and done Wednesday. Then on Thursday, new numbers will be released (and if economists are corect) the deficit will grow -- whose knows, maybe back up to $434 million again (despite the actions taken the day before.) So...by the end week, although some action was taken, the progress made is zip...zero...none. We're still in the same boat.
And we still haven't begun dealing with the next two years, and the $6 billion projected shortfall over that period.
The Democratic leadership passed on the opportunity to make another trip to Hartford, especially since the new legislative session would begin five days after the date she picked. So they instead decided to act on her plan next week....Wednesday, Jan. 14.
That's an interesting date, because the following day, Thursday, Jan. 15, is the deadline for fourth quarter tax payments. That means, when the lawmakers take up the governor's proposal -- that deals with addressing the projected $343 million shortfall -- they won't know exactly what the latest figures on projected income tax revenues are (because that won't be known until the day after.)
The fourth quarter income tax filings will reflect the major collapse of Wall Stret investsments that took place in October....when the market hit those all-time lows. Most economists suggest that it's likely those numbers (the Jan. 15 filings) will be bad -- and could result in boosting the projected deficit higher than the current $343 million thinking.
If that's true....then what happens in Hartford next week is this:
The legislature looks over the governor's plan, adopts a good portion of it -- but probably not all of it -- so there will still be a deficit in currently year spending when all is said and done Wednesday. Then on Thursday, new numbers will be released (and if economists are corect) the deficit will grow -- whose knows, maybe back up to $434 million again (despite the actions taken the day before.) So...by the end week, although some action was taken, the progress made is zip...zero...none. We're still in the same boat.
And we still haven't begun dealing with the next two years, and the $6 billion projected shortfall over that period.
posted by Ray Hackett at 1:37 PM
1 Comments:
Gee, you make it sound like it's a 'bad thing'? We elect (and select) people for public office office based heavily on how much they don't actually do and we may have reached the logical limit to this practice.
By returning people to office, at all levels, who have confused busy' with 'productive' and who truly believe, 'if I don't do ANYTHING, I cannot do ANYTHING WRONG', we have come to the place where the road and the sky collide.
One or more of us needs to practice being 'surprised' and 'disappointed'. Otherwise, too many of us may actually become 'angry' and try to change the processes we're using now to go in circles--when we're actually really circling the drain.
Any volunteers? We are knee deep in big muddy (with my apologies to Pete Seeger) and guess how much higher the waters will rise.
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