Math be Hard

As part of their Week in Review email blast, released on Friday, the Republican Party of Texas made some excited and pretty bold claims about what the legislature just passed in the 2010-11 budget.

The message said, "We would like to commend the Texas Legislature for decreasing the state budget by 1.6 billon dollars. This is a 1.9% decrease from last session and the second largest spending cut in the state's history."

Which is all marvelous, apart from the fact those numbers are completely wrong.

According to the Legislative Budget Board analysis of the Conference Committee version of Senate Bill 1, the $182.3 billion budget is up $12.6 billion, or 7.4% percent, from last biennium.

What the RPT was actually talking about was the amount from general revenue funds, which only accounts for 48% of the total budget. This year they approved $87.1 billion – down $1.6 billion from 2008-9, which actually equates to 1.8%. But claiming that represents the entire budget is like saying that nickels are real money and dimes don't count.

The one interesting part of this is their claim that "the state's Rainy Day fund has a balance of $9.1 billion dollars to address future state emergency needs." They'll be hard stretched to claim that a one-time property tax fix for 2011 is a state emergency need.