State fiscal crisis

Most state budgets are in crisis. The Big Picture's Barry Ritholtz notes that state tax revenue has fallen sharply the last two quarters. The left wing Center for Budget and Policy Priorities notes that "[a]t least 48 states addressed or are facing shortfalls in their budgets for the upcoming year."

Not Indiana. Under Mitch Daniels' leadership the state reported a $1.3b surplus. The State Auditor Tim Berry noted that they even raised school funding:

Berry stood in front of charts Friday that show Indiana increased school funding, avoided a tax hike, and maintained a surplus of about 10%. [...]

"Measures that were taken early on by Governor Mitch Daniels to restrain spending have amounted for a large amount of these fiscal reserves," Berry said.

The Louisville paper notes that tax revenue was even down $1.2b below projections:

The state had $1.33 billion in its main checking account and reserves when the fiscal year ended June 30. That's roughly the same as one year ago, even though state taxes brought in $1.2 billion less than originally projected.

How's that for successful governance? No wonder there is a draft movement for Mitch Daniels for President.

In October, I wrote about the problems caused by signficant investment losses in CalPERS, the California Public Employees Retirement System. At that point CalPERS had lost 20% of its value in 4 months and was going to state and local tax-payers to demand that they make up the hole in their investments.

Well, they screwed up, and they are back asking for more money. Not only did they lose invested money, but they were actually leveraged up, so they did particularly badly. From the WSJ:

Calpers in recent weeks said it expects to report paper losses of 103% on its housing investments in the fiscal year ended June 30. That's because Calpers invested not only its own money, but billions of dollars of borrowed money that must be repaid even if the investment fails. In some deals, as much as 80% of the money invested by Calpers was borrowed.

Now, obviously, it is terrible thwhen at any investor loses their shirts. But it seems that this is just blatant risk mismanagement, shifting assets to higher-risk investment vehicles:

But Calpers has targeted less money in bonds, and about double the allocation to private-equity investments and real-estate deals, than the average public pension fund, according to Calpers documents and an industry survey. ...

Since the average rate applies to Calpers's entire housing portfolio, some individual deals used as much as 80% borrowed money, Mr. McCook recalls. That level is more aggressive than many pension funds or land developers would use, industry consultants and developers say.

So how do they fill the gap? The tax-payer:

Calpers is now warning California's cities, towns and schools that they may have to cough up more money to cover the retirement and other benefits the fund provides for 1.6 million state workers. Some towns are already cutting municipal services, and at least one is partly blaming the Calpers fees.

Let's get this straight. The pension managers mismanage their money by engaging in more risky investments, the investments go under, and now the people of California have to foot the bill so that public employees don't have to suffer?

What about the rest of us? Why do public employees deserve to get bailed out, but not the rest of the pension holders?

Stopping this has got to be a political winner. If I were a California activist, I would be pushing a ballot measure that would require a referendum to approve any additional taxes to fill gaps in CalPERS.

My central insight in my recent disagreement with Patrick is that the creativity will take place in the states. While there will be some very important fights in Washington over the next 2-4 years, in particular health care, card check, and bailouts, another equally important fight will happen in 40 or more states over that time period. In the federal fights, our answer is likely to be simply: NO.

But at the states, something else will happen. Check out this map (click for a larger version), courtesy of the New York Times, via The Big Picture:

Our states -- and our municipalities -- are in fiscal crisis. They have gotten drunk on revenue from a credit bubble. As the economy deleverages to something sane, state and local revenue is, or has already, collapsed. Education budgets based on property taxes will develop massive holes when assessments reflect 40% drops in housing prices. Examples, from the NYT story above, of how bad it is:

In Michigan, to reduce overtime costs, fewer streets will be salted this winter. In Ohio, where the unemployment rate is above 7 percent, the state may need a federal loan for the first time in 26 years to cover unemployment costs. In Nevada, which is almost totally dependent on sales taxes and gamblingrevenues, a health administrator said the state may be unable to pay claims in a few months.

So we are going to need to cut spending and/or raise taxes to pay for some of these services. We are probably going to end up fighting over taxes. I searched Google News for "state tax increases" and came up with the following headlines from the last 24 hours:

• Milwaukee, WI: Most state residents don't favor business tax increases, poll finds
• Alexandria, MN: Local proposed tax levies higher than state average
• North Mankato, MN: Tax increases for North Mankato
• Johnson County, KS: Readers write about Johnson County tax increases
• Utah: Utah gas tax increase in the pipeline?
• Florida: Budget blues lead lawmakers to eye raising cigarrette taxes
• Cortlandt, NY: Cortlandt cuts costs to reduce tax increases
• Phoenix, AZ: State's drop in tax collections spurs concerns
• Kingston, NH: Kingston residents suprised over property tax hike
• Stafford, NH: Stafford tax rate to increase 76 cents

And, of course, the government employees unions, with their unsustainable pensions on the model of GM and Ford, are shaking the cup for their local and state tax increases too, as I have pointed out before.

There are opportunities here for Republicans to fix the brand. We can demand no tax increases. Perhaps more importantly, we can demand cost-saving reforms in government services. The leaders and winners of these fights will be the ones who will have earned their place as party leaders in the future.

Once again, the salvation for our party and our future leaders doesn't reside in Washington. The real action will be in the state capitals.  Outside of stopping some bailouts, the real action will reside there.

So let's stop talking about Washington and figure out how to play in these states, state by state, municipality by municipality.