Call it the Scott Walkering of America.
Even though tax revenues are finally rising faster than expenses, governors across the nation are recommending more austerity in the budgets they’re presenting to state legislatures this year, the latest survey from the National Governors Association shows.
For the fiscal year beginning July 1, governors are recommending a 2.2 percent increase to $683 billion in general revenue fund spending. That’s down from the 3.3 percent increase in state spending in 2012. Revenue, meanwhile, is projected to rise four percent during the coming fiscal year.
“The public sector has even more uncertainty at this time than the private sector,” said Dan Crippen, executive director of the NGA and former head of the Congressional Budget Office. Citing the looming Supreme Court decision on health care reform, the uncertain levels of federal aid from the “fiscal cliff” negotiations, and talk of tax reform that could cut tax expenditures that benefit state and local governments, “it’s pretty hard for states to plan,” he said.
