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Thursday, December 01, 2005

Structural balance

One thing I forgot in my post on the budget forecast is the issue of structural balance. Put simply, is the budget still showing more revenues than expenditures into the future, beyond this biennium? I didn't see any news reports on this, and I haven't cadged a copy of the report myself. I would be interested in seeing this very important part of the forecast. With health care costs rising, it's going to be hard to get our state's budget into balance.

Oh, and yes, the overall budget surplus is good news for the state, despite what certain commenters may think I believe. My point is that the money is already set aside for righting the wrongs wrought by the legislature in the past. It is far too early for legislators to start congratulating themselves and figuring out how to spend the money.

2 Comments:

At 1:52 AM, December 02, 2005, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Are they factoring inflation into this forecast? This has been a point of dispute in the past.

 
At 9:25 AM, December 02, 2005, Blogger Kevin from Minneapolis said...

Revenue offered two forecasts for the out biennium, one with inflation and one without. Both show a surplus.

For the current biennium (source of the 701 million surplus) I may be mistaken but I believe inflation was factored into the budget past in July. But I could be wrong.

 

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