No pressure here to raise taxes in this years budget. I am firm on this point as is our caucus.
We seek a true spending limitation so we don’t keep doing this everytime the state economy and subsequently, tax revenues are down. The economy and most other things [global temperature] run in something called cycles. We cannot always count on high revenue to sustain year over year new spending. The rainy day fund, which should really be called a drought fund is an important tool to help in budget drought years. However, we won’t see many deposits into such a fund as rainy day/high revenue years are less likely without a spending limitation on budget spending.
As it is, I don’t see how we will see the type of excess revenue to sweep into the "drought fund" for a while. Not this year, not next, and probably not 3 years out. Which makes the chatter about a rainy day/drought fund as this years big fix, bogus. It’s not a fix without a spending limit. It’s as simple as that.
If you want to prolong a stale economy, go ahead and raise taxes to fix this budget…sales tax, income tax, property tax, whatever. I’ll still be opposed.