Our good friends over at The Shad Plank have the insightful observation that gee — maybe Governor T-Mac was a tad bit off in his projections:
Well, nine months into this fiscal year — that is, about three-eighths of the way through the two-year budget — it turns out that revenue is running $800 million ahead of the year ago level.
At $12 billion dollars, it’s up 7 percent from last year’s level.
Virginia’s already collected 70 percent of the money it forecast it would this fiscal year — with the big months of April, May and June, with their larger -than-average inflows still to come.
Local governments can start breathing a sigh of relief, and maybe some of those more egregious tax hikes being bandied about can come back down to earth.
Still, when the politicians in Richmond start throwing around numbers, policy makers need to be aware of the very real world consequences to working families. One would think that JLARC is more than equipped to provide some sort of ground truth, and if not the public employees of JLARC then perhaps a Virginia non-profit?
The games politicians play to squeeze a dime out of the pockets of taxpayers…
