A fellow Ohio blogger, Bizzy Blog out of Cincinnati, emphasizes business news; but he also closely tracks Federal spending and debt patterns. In today's post, notes that Federal revenue collections are up 45% since April 2004 (1.9 trillion to 2.8 trillion); however, Federal spending has outstripped revenues. For the period January-April (while the bulk of Federal taxes are being collected), revenues increased by 3%, but spending increased by 7.8%, a rate that BizzyBlog calls "unsustainable."
You know what I'm going to say next. Ohio has had a balanced budget since 1852. Do you want to consider independence now, or do you want to wait for the Feds to go bankrupt?
4 comments:
Thanks for noticing. The YTD figures are actually for the fiscal year, i.e., October thru April. To ramp spending back to a barely tolerable increase (i.e., 3% or so), they'll probably have to spend less in the last 5 months of this FY than they did last year. Not, gonna, happen.
I encourage everyone to read Kevin Phillips' latest book: Bad Money. The entire nation is much closer to insolvency than most Americans realize-- and it's not just public debt. Private debt is almost 350% of GDP-- a lot higher than in 1929.
For a summary, read Phillips' article in the May 2008 issue of Harper's Magazine (available online) and/or go to the Democracy Now! website and download the May 6 interview with him:
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/6/bad_money_reckless_finance_failed_politics
Harold, I mean it is obvious, but Ohio has to balance their budget while the federal govt does not.
You have raised some compelling arguments before here. i dont think this is one of them.
Ben:
Why is it a less compelling argument that Ohio "had" to balance its budget? Because it is in our State Constitution?
At least one State (Vermont) does not have a balanced budget requirement in its Constitution, and some that do run deficits anyway (California, for example).
Ohio could have repealed the provision, but thankfully did not. My point is that it is to our credit as Ohioans that we have maintained this discipline since 1852 despite economic conditions that forced heavy budgetary cutbacks (including State Fiscal Years 2008-2009).
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