The business lobby’s guide to balancing the budget

Bill Hammond, the president and CEO of the Texas Association of Business, pens an op-ed with his preferred approach to the budget. The main thing to note is right here:

The state has $72.2 billion available for general-purpose spending during the 2012-13 biennium, leaving a $15 billion gap from the current general revenue spending of $87 billion.

How do we close that gap?

It will take grit and courage to address the shortfall without raising taxes, creating new fees or increasing existing ones.

Difficult? Yes. Doable? Absolutely.

First, let’s hold the line on general revenue spending at its current level of $87 billion for the biennium.

Given that the Pitts and Ogden budget drafts held the line at $72.2 billion, holding it at $87 billion – the amount spent in 2009 – would be a major step forward. It’s still not good, it still doesn’t acknowledge the state’s growth, it still shortchanges education because as Hammond would have it the structural deficit caused by the property tax cut and insufficient business margins tax continues to be ignored, but it’s a hell of a lot better than what’s currently being discussed.

Hammond’s methods for closing the $15 billion gap between what we spent in 2009 and what the draft budgets propose to spend now are a bit shaky. He starts with $6 billion from the Rainy Day fund, throws in another $2.5 billion from the Available School Fund, about which I confess I know very little, and grudgingly agrees to expanded gambling, which he says would generate another billion for this biennium. From there, he suggests some savings, delaying some payments by a day to put them in the next biennium, and waves his hands at “some of the thoughtful recommendations laid out in recent days by organizations like the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and conservative think tanks”, none of which suggests more revenue to me. I don’t have a problem with finding legitimate savings, though my opening bid for that would be the LBB recommendations, which do include revenue ideas as well, nor would I object to an accounting trick or two as a last resort, but these suggestions are not compatible with finding enough revenue to “hold the line” at $87 billion.

I don’t want to be too critical, because to me the main point is that Hammond is moving the chains in a direction I favor and is giving the Republicans his organization supports rhetorical cover for using the Rainy Day fund. It’s not where the state needs to be, but I’m more than happy to debate how to spend $87 billion instead of how to spend $72 billion. I hope that by writing this, Hammond is acknowledging that the mainstream consensus position is not with the Pitts/Ogden budget. That by itself would mean a lot.

Hammond’s op-ed can now also be seen in the DMN and at the Trib, where it’s accompanied by counterpoints from the CPPP’s Eva de Lina Castro and Talmadge “Kick Grandma to the street” Heflin. Wonder if he feels weird being in the “center” of this debate. Burka has more.

Related Posts:

• House approves a little more money, Senate readies its budget
• Business leaders urged to oppose “cuts only” approach to the budget
• State revenues inching up