Over-Spending the Income

Heh.

Preliminary state Department of Revenue totals show the personal and corporate income tax and the sales tax brought in $5.13 billion from July through December, an increase of only 0.8% over the same period in 2006--falling far short of the 3% assumed growth needed to cover state expenditures this year.

Every unexpected 1% drop in collections from those taxes means state government will have $120 million less a year to spend.

The two-year budget that Doyle and legislators agreed to in October included a 6% spending increase, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

A certain blogger/friend of mine will testify that I've been very curious about the State's sales-tax revenue numbers over the last few months. No wonder that 'nobody could find the numbers'...

Now he knows WHY I was curious.

What's DarthDoyle's plan?

"When the economy slows like this, it's going to be a real challenge. We're going to be in a difficult time, and we're going to ask people to make sacrifices, and do without some things and put some things off that we want to get done."

Don't you love that indefinite "people" in that sentence?

WHICH "people" Jimbo? The taxpaying "people," or the tax-receiving "people"?

These sentences may be a clue:

One budgeting method, the Generally Accepted Accounting Practices, puts Wisconsin's latest deficit at $2.44 billion - a $300 million increase in a year.

Wisconsin state officials don't use that accounting method because it would consider promises of future state aid to local governments as a draw against current tax collections.

...meaning that those promises are the easiest to break, of course.