re: #390 engineer dog

I can work with the NY example, since that’s the state I’m most familiar with.

NYS proposed a budget in FY08-09, and proceeded to run a massive deficit. In it’s proposed FY09-10 budget, it called for still more spending (more than 5% higher spending), increased taxes and fees and ran up another deficit. For FY10-11, the budget increased yet again by about $1 billion, and did so with another $1 billion in taxes and fees. Had the state kept the line on spending (that would be additional spending), no additional taxes and fees would have been necessary for FY10-11.

This isn’t merely increasing revenues through an improved economic situation, but rather imposing new and more fees on an already stressed tax base.

The state utilized the fed transfer payments under ARRA of 2009 to fund a significant part of the increased state spending in FY09-10. It didn’t undertake any meaningful structural reform on spending - where even a 1% cut on spending could result in a $1+ billion savings across all state programs.

The state could have adopted a condensed work week, which has been adopted in some other states to avoid layoffs, and savings, but didn’t.

NY could have sought to eliminate and/or consolidate any number of public authorities, which add to the state’s debt load, but it didn’t.