Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Spinning the vicious, vicious budget cycles

Reading this article about an impending budget squeeze in Tennessee, ("Bredesen says he’ll be handling tight budget smoothly" on Nashville City Paper), I couldn't help but think of the $1.3 billion (that's BILLION) surplus from last (fiscal) year . . . since voters tend to have short memories, I thought I'd provide a public service by reminding us of the foolishness of assuming you'll always be flush with cash. As my dad used to say, "Don't let that money burn a hole in your pocket."

But I loved this terminology (perhaps it is gov't accounting terminology) in the report:
"Meanwhile, the Department of Education requested $133 million total in improvements to their budget today . . ."
"Improvements"? Are those the same thing as "increases"?

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