COMMONWEALTH – Budgets cuts early because lawmakers miscalculated tax collections
Amid the grumbling about budget cuts ordered last week by Gov. Haley Barbour, one salient point is being overlooked.
These cuts are coming so soon because Mississippi lawmakers, with Barbour’s concurrence, enacted a budget that misgauged the severity of the downturn in tax collections.
Projecting revenues, admittedly, is an inexact science. The further out the forecast, the less reliable the projections tend to be.
Barbour, to his credit, isn’t just sitting back and keeping his fingers crossed. He has ordered $172 million in spending reductions, including a 5 percent slice from most education budgets, to close the gap between what’s coming in and what’s going out from the state treasury. By law, Mississippi cannot run a deficit.
Greenwood Commonwealth
9/9/9
