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Maxing out the State Credit Card

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As noted in yesterday’s post, the Commonwealth signaled its intention to utilize the full $1b in short-term borrowing capability in advance of April’s tax receipts. April is typical the toughest month as personal income tax receipts aren’t due until the 15th and over $1b in local aid has to go out at the beginning of the month. But the Treasurer just announced that the state will be maxing out its credit card in December, not April.

Interesting Reading

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The latest version of the Commonwealth’s Information Statement Supplement , the best source of concrete financial data on our state, is out. A few nuggets: The Surplus: pg. A-1 — The State ended up with a fiscal 2007 surplus of $190.9 million. Of course, there was a supplemental budget passed in October (for FY2007) that spent $212.1m and rolled over $60m in unexpended funds. Thus, without that supp, there would have been a surplus of $462m. Lottery Deficit: pg. A-2 — The lottery was short by $119m and will be short by $124m next year, unless sales pick up significantly.  That’s $243m that the state needs to make up somewhere. Taxes: pg. A-3 — FY2007 tax revenues exceeded projections by […]

Full Coverage of Saliva-Related Issues

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The Legislature may not have had time to take up gambling or biotech investments this session, but rest assured that the issue of band-instrument spittle is moving apace — just today the Senate approved a House bill establishing a task force to examine hygienic procedures pertaining to band instruments.

American Exceptionalism

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Joseph Stiglitz was spot on about the costs of the Iraq War. But, like many Nobel Prize economists, he’s gained a tendency to believe he has a pulpit from which to preach. Sort of like being an economist and a New York Times columnist, except that Stiglitz still is an economist. I enjoy Stiglitz less and less, I admit, but being cooped up in an airplane for 20 hours does something to you. You read what you brought or you watch the Transformers. (On that score, god, please let the Screenwriters strike stretch on –at least this year we will have fewer lousy movies.) In one of the articles, Stiglitz, taking a page out of the John Edwards-Mike Huckabee-Barack Obama […]

Science giveth and science taketh away

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The ethical controversy surrounding embryonic stem cells engendered by the scientific use of stem cells may now be at an end. Dr. Maureen Condic and Dr. Markus Grompe write in the Wall Street Journal (11/23/07): Two major scientific papers published this week in Science and Cell magazines unveil a proven way to generate patient-matche, human pluripotent stem cells without human cloning, and with the use of human embryos or human or animal eggs. Exciting stuff. And, one hopes, a way past what many considered a slippery slope of giving ethical “easements” on the basis pure hope (and as we are not sure of the potential yet, perhaps even hype). Science has provided a resolution to the ethical and political debate, […]