August 11, 2014      11:29 AM
Greenfield: Combs Getting the Numbers Right, Is That Too Difficult?
Given that revenues have already exceeded predicted increases, Comptroller revenue estimate looks to again be dramatically off
In
testimony
last week before the Legislative Budget Board (LBB) last
week, John Heleman, the Chief
Revenue Estimator, stated that the Texas economy continues to outpace the
growth in the U.S. economy. Later that
week, Comptroller Combs through her
spokesperson, Kevin Lyons, stated
“there will be at least $232 million more revenue than she officially estimated
last year. One would expect that with an
economy growing at a rate twice that of the U.S., state revenue, primarily
taxes, would also be substantially improved.
An increase of $232 million is only 0.1 percent of the $200 billion in
revenue the state will receive over this biennium.
The
attached analysis will show that while tax revenue as Mr
Heleman stated, “is not growing as fast as the last
three fiscal years,” the current rate of growth in tax collections is almost
three times greater than the rate in the Comptroller’s current revenue estimate
(6.8 percent v. 2.4 percent). While, the
rate of growth in total state revenue is only a little over twice (7.4 percent
v. 3.5 percent) the growth rate in the current estimate.
By Stuart Greenfield, Ph.D.
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Copyright August 11, 2014, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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