*a friend of mine and I were talking last night about the massive drop off in state revenues from taxes to the local economy receipts or lack thereof. I pointed out that the IJIOTS in Congress are clueless about the upcoming doomsday of the municipal bond market which continues to hamper state' ability to pay coffers let alone create much needed jobs in ALL fifty states. the worst thing about it to me is that the federal government has been trying to help states by loaning them unemployment funds and guaranteeieng their muni bonds with the US. But muni's have been suffering since the latter part of 2007 and the credit rating agencies have done a piss poor job for a decade of evaluating just how serious the problem is. Just check out Gretchen Morgenson's piece last week in the NYTimes.
bloomberg.com
State Revenue Falls Most Since 1963 on Incomes, Sales
By Jerry Hart and William Selway
Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. state tax collections tumbled the most in almost half a century in the second quarter as the economic recession curbed levies on incomes and sales.
The 16.6 percent plunge was the biggest since at least 1963, the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government said today. For the 12 months to June 30, the fiscal year for most states, revenue declined 8.2 percent, or $63 billion, about twice what states got from the $787 billion U.S. economic stimulus package, the institute said.
State revenue has dwindled for two straight quarters and continued to decline in July and August, the Albany-based research organization said. Budgets for the year that began July 1 already face $26 billion of deficits, the Washington, D.C.- based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said Aug. 12, forcing state lawmakers to confront additional spending cuts.
“We’re looking at a multiyear problem hitting essentially every state,” Robert Ward, the institute’s deputy director, told reporters. “It has happened during recessions before, but the depth of this decline is unprecedented in modern times.”
Collections dropped in 49 states in the second quarter as sales and personal-income taxes slid for the third consecutive period, the institute said. Income tax was down 27.5 percent and sales tax fell down 9.5 percent, its study said. Both categories fell by the most in 45 years.
“Many economists believe that the national recession has ended and that a tepid recovery is now underway,” Rockefeller analysts Lucy Dadayan and Donald J. Boyd wrote. “Unfortunately for states, an emerging economic recovery does not spell instant budget relief.”
‘Considerably More’
Figures for July and August for 36 early-reporting states showed tax collections down 8 percent, the Rockefeller Institute said. At least 17 states have announced budget shortfalls since July, with “considerably more” expected, Boyd said.
New York’s tax revenue from April 1 to Sept. 15 was $634.5 million below projections and $3.6 billion less than a year ago, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said yesterday. California reported last week that revenue trailed a forecast made less than three months earlier by $1.1 billion, or 5.3 percent.
States are anticipating more cuts to current-year budgets, already pared once to bring them into balance. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour told managers on Oct. 13 to cut spending 5 percent because tax collections in the first three months of fiscal 2010 were 7.7 percent below estimates. Florida Governor Charlie Crist told department heads on Oct. 12 not to request more money for next year, when the state faces a $2.6 billion deficit.
“It’s clear that when governors propose their budgets in January, the vast preponderance will be looking for more spending cuts and tax increases,” Boyd said.
Housing Market
The main driver for the second-quarter decline was lower income-tax collections, Boyd said on a conference call, “most likely due to lower capital gains from market declines in 2008 and the bursting real estate bubble.”
Payroll-tax withholding fell 4 percent from a year earlier and estimated-tax payments made in the quarter fell 32 percent in the median state, he said.
“Real wages take 13 to 17 quarters to recover from the end of a recession,” he said. “It will take several years for states to bring spending into line with incomes.”
The study’s retail-sales index showed an 11 percent decline since the start of the recession in December 2007, he said. The second quarter’s 9.5 percent decline in sales taxes followed an 8.3 percent decline in the first quarter, he said.
Alaska’s tax income declined the most of any state, the study said, with an 86.5 percent drop because of lower oil prices. Vermont fared the best, with a 2.2 percent gain because of a one-time estate-tax settlement.
Local tax collections declined by 2.8 percent in the second quarter, the Rockefeller study said. That’s less severe than the state slowdown because municipalities rely more on property taxes, which rose “a surprising” 3.1 percent in the quarter, the report said.
Still, 88 percent of local finance officers said in a September poll by the National League of Cities that they’re less able to cover expenses than in the year before.
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