Legislators finished crafting their alternative budget yesterday with an agreement on how much not to cut the bloated higher mis-education budget. Which means the final figures for the epoch 2009 Battle of the Budget are almost in place. Here’s pretty much the playing field for Final Taxpayer Jeopardy….
In January, Gov. Jim Gibbons proposed a $6.2 billion general fund budget which included an estimated $232 million tax hike.
On May 1st, the Economic Forum declared the Gibbons budget unbalanced due to further projected tax revenue declines. To balance the budget without tax hikes now, legislators need to spend no more than around $5.5 billion.
Yesterday, legislators finished pumping up the governor’s original budget with “add backs” (budgetary steroids) and will now begin lying to Nevada’s citizens with enough energy to power Elko County.
Democrats (and the Republican legislators who enable them), are going to try selling us on the fantasy that it will take $7 billion to fund the state’s “essential” government services. It’s a crock, but that’s the con game they’ll launch today.
The final missing parts are:
A.) How much of the $1.5 billion difference between the Democrats’ $7 billion budget and the $5.5 billion the Economic Forum says we have to play with will be made up with federal “stimulus” money, and how much will have to come from massive new tax hikes?
B.) Once the final tax hike number is settled upon, exactly who is going to get the shaft and how badly?
C.) Which “rat heads in Coke cans” Republicans will give the Democrats the votes they need to pass this huge tax hike over the governor’s promised veto, thus depriving the GOP of a powerful campaign issue next year?
Stay tuned, folks. The spit is about to finally hit the spam!
