This is a bit more than just finding some loose change under the sofa cushions, no?
INDIANAPOLIS — The state has ended the latest fiscal year with its third consecutive balanced budget.
State officials closed the books on the fiscal year that ended on June 30 with revenues exceeding spending by about $321 million. That was in part due to spending restraints ordered by Gov. Mitch Daniels that included some agencies not filling vacant positions and delaying some capital projects.
The state ended the year with nearly $600 million in its main checking account. That combined with savings accounts left the state with a budget surplus of about $1.4 billion.
State Auditor Tim Berry said Thursday that Indiana is on firm financial ground, while 29 other states — including the four surrounding Indiana — are facing fiscal woes.
Democrats, interestingly, think that the money should be given back to the people of Indiana.
This is a novel concept for Democrats; I am sure they will shake themselves out of it soon.
Jill Long Thompson should probably be careful what she asks for. Nothing would turn this election into a shattering and party-destroying two-to-one thumping like the Governor deciding to use the budget surplus to help alleviate gas prices by temporarily doing away with the sales tax on gasoline (or calling a brief special session and asking to get that authority, since the AG’s office doesn’t seem to think that he has it already).
(Read more after the leap)
I can only imagine what the Democrats would howl then, once they actually got what they say they want.
I bet it would sound like what David McIntosh and his campaign said when Frank O’Bannon waived the gas tax and drove the state into near-bankruptcy to save his faltering reelection chances.
The difference now, of course, is that Mitch could probably waive the gas taxes without busting the state’s budget (a consideration that apparently never crossed Frank O’Bannon’s mind).
Mitch is already well ahead of her in polling and, unlike Bart Peterson and the morons that ran that campaign, he is wisely not taking his victory for granted.
Mitch Daniels isn’t a man who rests on laurels or is content to merely tread water and hold station.
He pushes forward.
