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The Petri Dish
November 19, 2009

 
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Forecast calls for less revenue, more deficit and likely sin taxes


Posted at 11:56 am by Jerry Cornfield

Today's latest revenue forecast contained more evidence that consumers are not feeling good about their economic well-being and thus aren't spending any money.

The state's chief forecaster, Arun Raha, predicted another crushing drop of $760 million in expected revenues in the current budget that runs through June 30, 2011.

That prompted the governor's office to project the budget deficit is now $2.6 billion.

Here's Raha's report..

Gov. Chris Gregoire said earlier this week it was a formidable challenge to find savings when the deficit sat at $2 billion. Now, with a higher number, the process is getting more difficult.

"I don't quite see the path yet," budget director, Victor Moore. said today.

Here's his department's response to today's report and a PowerPoint on the problem.

After today's release of the report, Sen. Rodney Tom said he's looking at sin taxes and maybe a levy on candy next session.

Republican Rep. Ed Orcutt and Sen. Joe Zarelli both blasted the idea of any new tax in 2010.

Here's the senator's statement.

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green jobs - to go to China
The budget crisis will get MUCH worse, and here's but one reason. We will lose jobs to China that require rare earth metals that America no longer produces. China has the monopoly.

Here is a NYT article I suggest you read. nytimes.com/2009/09/01/business/global/01minerals.html?_r=1 It illustrates the fallacy of government creating thousands of green energy jobs, without a commensurate willingness to produce the raw materials necessary to make the devices. America lost its resource production capacity when environmentalism forced out that type mining. Without these 17 rare earth metals, there is little we can do to create US jobs making the devices. Further, our aerospace and defense industries, advanced electronics, lasers, data storage, and advanced batteries are all held hostage to a growing crisis.

Having government spending our money to push us into increasing consumption of decreasing raw materials is suicidal. Please remember this as the debate rages about how Washington State spends taxpayer money.

2010 - VOTE to put common sense into government.
Randy Dutton | Nov 20, 2009 11:04 am | 0 replies | Request removal

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