{"id":10232,"date":"2011-06-27T14:02:34","date_gmt":"2011-06-27T18:02:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=10232"},"modified":"2011-06-27T14:03:43","modified_gmt":"2011-06-27T18:03:43","slug":"5-common-gimmicks-states-use-to-%e2%80%98balance%e2%80%99-budgets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/10232\/5-common-gimmicks-states-use-to-%e2%80%98balance%e2%80%99-budgets\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Common Gimmicks States Use to \u2018Balance\u2019 Budgets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After California Governor Jerry Brown (D) <a href=\"http:\/\/articles.latimes.com\/2011\/jun\/17\/local\/la-me-0617-state-budget-20110617\" target=\"_blank\">vetoed the legislature\u2019s budget bill<\/a>, many questioned the definition of a \u201cbudget gimmick\u201d since both Brown and the legislature accused the other of using accounting tricks and unrealistic assumptions to balance the state\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n<p>Thankfully, the <a href=\"http:\/\/azcapitoltimes.com\/news\/2011\/06\/26\/budget-gimmicks-explained-5-ways-states-hide-deficits\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Arizona Capitol Times<\/em><\/a> has an answer.\u00a0 Actually, it has five.\u00a0 Here are the most commonly used gimmicks states employ to meet the technical (i.e. constitutional) requirement to balance their budgets.\u00a0 (Note: Examples of states doing these are indicated by their two letter abbreviation.)<\/p>\n<p>(1)\u00a0\u00a0 <strong>Putting off payments<\/strong> \u2013 can include delaying or skipping payments to schools and pensions (Ex: IL, MN, NJ)<\/p>\n<p>(2)\u00a0\u00a0 <strong>Accelerating revenue<\/strong> \u2013 this gimmick collects taxes like those on sales early (TX)<\/p>\n<p>(3)\u00a0\u00a0 <strong>Using temporary money for recurring expenses<\/strong> \u2013 spending \u2018rainy day\u2019 funds to cut the grass (HI)<\/p>\n<p>(4)\u00a0\u00a0 <strong>Counting on savings that aren\u2019t likely to materialize<\/strong> \u2013 one example is mandating less spending without enacting a specific policy change (CA, CT)<\/p>\n<p>(5)\u00a0\u00a0 <strong>Counting on revenue that isn\u2019t likely to materialize<\/strong> \u2013 such as counting on a federal bailout or stimulus funding that does not appear (NY, CA)<\/p>\n<p>So, there you have it: A five-point B.S. meter for judging the seriousness of your state\u2019s \u201cbalanced\u201d budget.<\/p>\n<p>I wonder if the Tea Party is readying state constitutional amendment drives to ban these practices and give their balanced budgets more credibility\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After California Governor Jerry Brown (D) vetoed the legislature\u2019s budget bill, many questioned the definition of a \u201cbudget gimmick\u201d since both Brown and the legislature accused the other of using accounting tricks and unrealistic assumptions to balance the state\u2019s budget. Thankfully, the Arizona Capitol Times has an answer.\u00a0 Actually, it has five.\u00a0 Here are the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1898,299,2807,2035],"class_list":["post-10232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-balanced-budget","tag-california","tag-gimmick","tag-jerry-brown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10232"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10236,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10232\/revisions\/10236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}