Search results for "economic forecasts" ...

• Fiscal tricks for the fat years

  Governing reports on "budget gimmickry" used by state governments to balance their budgets or to increase their expenditures. The story finds that the tricks do not end when the recession ends, but just take a different character. The report looks at why state revenues overall have exceeded projections in the middle of the 90s, and examines some states' practices of "lowballing," or consistently underestimating revenues.

  Tags: economy; politics; recession; revenues; economic forecasts; Virginia; South Carolina; North Carolina; Kentucky; Montana; Maryland; Tennessee; Fitch Investors Service; finance; financial control; local government; budget deficits; state funds; taxes; legislature

  By Penelope Lemov

  Governing

  1997

• Colored by Numbers

  National Journal focuses on how "government budget forecasters offer various scenarios, both rosy and gloomy, but few ever hit the marks." The report finds that "despite all of the partisan rancor over tax cuts - or perhaps because of it - one thing seems certain: Ten-year budgets and the estimates they're based on are coming in for a good deal of scrutiny." The story looks at the political debate on government spending and projected tax cuts and exposes the fallibility of the forecasts prepared by the Congressional Budget Office. The author draws the conclusion that "budgetary restraint - in short enough supply, even during an epoch of deficits - may be entirely out of stock in an era boasting any surpluses at all."

  Tags: money and politics; productivity; economic advisers; deficit; surplus; Republicans; Democrats; spending; revenue; Macroeconomics

  By Julie Kosterlitz

  National Journal

  2001