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And after you add them in for Texas, it's $158 billion. You're comparing apples and oranges. Additionally, timr was correct to restrict his numbers to state ta

by emmett 17y ago

And after you add them in for Texas, it's $158 billion. You're comparing apples and oranges. Additionally, timr was correct to restrict his numbers to state tax revenue, which is the total under discussion. If you do the math, it comes out to $6,500 per person in Teaxs, and $5,600 per person in California. So even considering the other sources of revenue (though it makes no sense to do so in this context), timr's point is still correct.

houseabsolute 17y ago
You're right, I misread the parent's post. It's unclear to me at this point whether the sums actually account for the same basket of incomes, but even if they do you have to admit that after this adjustment timr's point is about 50% less correct than it was before.
cwan 17y ago
Apparently still not true. Have a look here (California State Per Capita Revenue numbers) 2010E - State: $4015; State+Local: $9050 http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/CA_per_capita_revenue.html http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/CA_per_capita_revenue.htm... and here (Texas State Per Capita Revenue numbers) 2010E - State: $2980; State+Local: $7041 http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/TX_per_capita_revenue.html http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/TX_per_capita_revenue.htm... These tie better back to the US Census numbers (which are only as at 2004 but are on an apples-apples basis): http://www.census.gov/govs/state/04rank.html http://www.census.gov/govs/state/04rank.html The problem is that states do not report revenues in the same ways and some are clearly more creative than others.
- timr 17y ago
  Yes, there's a problem with my original post; no, it's not related to federal transfers -- it's correct to exclude them from the calculation. The problem is that Texas (bizarrely) allocates its budget on a biennial basis. I didn't read the documents closely enough, and had assumed that 2009-2010 meant fiscal 2009-2010. Oops. From the same Texas source, table A-12, the estimated total state revenue is $39.3 Bn for fiscal 2009. Thus, the per-capita revenue numbers for fiscal 2009 would be $1,617.30, versus $2,391 for California. So, I'm wrong. Texas takes in about 32% less per capita than California.
  - gojomo 17y ago
    It's not that bizarre they budget biennially -- when you consider that the Texas legislature is part-time, and meets only every other year. Given the eternal train-wreck that is California budgeting -- even in good years, they just give away the store in future obligations (like public pensions) that make the bad years twice as bad -- fewer, longer budgets might be a good idea here as well.
    - timr 17y ago
      AFAIK, the biggest problem with California budgeting is the initiative-driven pre-allocation of huge amounts of money that would otherwise be discretionary income. Pensions may play a part, but not nearly to the extent claimed by certain partisan interest groups.

by emmett 17y ago

houseabsolute 17y ago

You're right, I misread the parent's post. It's unclear to me at this point whether the sums actually account for the same basket of incomes, but even if they do you have to admit that after this adjustment timr's point is about 50% less correct than it was before.

cwan 17y ago

Apparently still not true. Have a look here (California State Per Capita Revenue numbers) 2010E - State: $4015; State+Local: $9050 http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/CA_per_capita_revenue.html http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/CA_per_capita_revenue.htm... and here (Texas State Per Capita Revenue numbers) 2010E - State: $2980; State+Local: $7041 http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/TX_per_capita_revenue.html http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/TX_per_capita_revenue.htm... These tie better back to the US Census numbers (which are only as at 2004 but are on an apples-apples basis): http://www.census.gov/govs/state/04rank.html http://www.census.gov/govs/state/04rank.html The problem is that states do not report revenues in the same ways and some are clearly more creative than others.

timr 17y ago
Yes, there's a problem with my original post; no, it's not related to federal transfers -- it's correct to exclude them from the calculation. The problem is that Texas (bizarrely) allocates its budget on a biennial basis. I didn't read the documents closely enough, and had assumed that 2009-2010 meant fiscal 2009-2010. Oops. From the same Texas source, table A-12, the estimated total state revenue is $39.3 Bn for fiscal 2009. Thus, the per-capita revenue numbers for fiscal 2009 would be $1,617.30, versus $2,391 for California. So, I'm wrong. Texas takes in about 32% less per capita than California.
- gojomo 17y ago
  It's not that bizarre they budget biennially -- when you consider that the Texas legislature is part-time, and meets only every other year. Given the eternal train-wreck that is California budgeting -- even in good years, they just give away the store in future obligations (like public pensions) that make the bad years twice as bad -- fewer, longer budgets might be a good idea here as well.
  - timr 17y ago
    AFAIK, the biggest problem with California budgeting is the initiative-driven pre-allocation of huge amounts of money that would otherwise be discretionary income. Pensions may play a part, but not nearly to the extent claimed by certain partisan interest groups.