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The Basics of Following the Money, Updated
As Tax Day approaches, we’ve updated three backgrounders that explain the sources of federal tax revenues and how we spend both federal and state tax dollars. Where Do Federal Tax Revenues Come From?...
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Top Five State Tax Charts
To accompany our Top 10 Federal Tax Charts, here are five charts focusing on state tax issues. First, let’s look at what state taxes pay for. By far the largest areas of state spending, on average,...
View ArticleMinnesota’s Tax Plan a Recipe for Future Growth
As states finalize their budgets for the next fiscal year, Minnesota stands out for making smart changes to its tax system that will position the state for future economic growth. The legislature...
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North Carolina Lawmakers Chart the Wrong Course
North Carolina’s Senate yesterday passed a budget that undermines key services, including education. This is one more step in the wrong direction for the state’s policymakers, who have spent this...
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The Deep Hole in Higher Ed Funding
“Many state governments have begun to boost higher-education budgets,” the Wall Street Journal reports today. That’s welcome news, but as the striking chart below (from our recent report) shows,...
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Why Smart States Are Raising Revenues, in One Graph
Five years after the start of the Great Recession, state revenues remain 5 percent below pre-recession levels, after adjusting for inflation, even as the number of people needing state services has...
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Going for Broke in Kansas
Kansas legislators passed a plan this past weekend to drain the state’s reserves, cut taxes for the rich, raise taxes for many lower-income families, and slash education in the process. The state is...
View ArticleCutting Taxes in New Mexico While Schools Suffer Won’t Bring Prosperity
Today’s Albuquerque Journal includes an op-ed by CBPP Senior Fellow Michael Mazerov explaining that New Mexico could promote long-term prosperity much more effectively by adequately funding education...
View ArticleJohnson: North Carolina Tax Plan Would Gut Funding For Schools, Other...
North Carolina’s Senate leaders proposed a tax plan yesterday that would eliminate corporate income taxes and slash the personal income tax rate, resulting in billions less to invest in critical state...
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Higher-Than-Expected Revenues Offer Lessons for States
In many states, recent tax collections are higher than last year, exceeding the states’ own projections. The higher-than-expected revenues are welcome — but states should proceed cautiously as they...
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North Carolina’s Obscene Attack on Jobless Benefits
North Carolina, with one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates at 8.8 percent, imposed cuts in unemployment benefits today that are truly breathtaking: Jobless workers can now receive only 19...
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State and Local Jobs: Stuck in a Deep Hole
State and local governments had 703,000 fewer employees in June 2013 than in August 2008, according to the jobs numbers released on Friday. That number has barely budged since January 2012 (see...
View ArticleAll Signs Pointing the Wrong Way for North Carolina
We’ve pointed out in recent several months North Carolina’s policymakers’ harmful tax and spending decisions. The combination of tax cuts that benefit the wealthy, cuts to programs that support the...
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North Carolina: A Model of What States Shouldn’t Do
In today’s New York Times “Room for Debate,” Michael Boskin defends the proposal to slash North Carolina’s income tax and help pay for it with a bigger sales tax by trotting out the theoretical...
View ArticleNorth Carolina’s Cut to Jobless Benefits: Far From Responsible
Eileen Norcross of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University offers up a doozy in her piece about North Carolina’s unemployment benefit cuts in today’s New York Times. North Carolina — where the...
View ArticleNorth Carolina’s Tax Bill Has Ominous National Implications
The radical tax bill that North Carolina lawmakers passed today—and that Governor Pat McCrory is expected to sign — has two dangerous implications for other states. It redefines “tax reform” to...
View ArticleMissouri Lawmakers Wisely Push Back Against Plan to Shift, Cut Taxes
A bipartisan group of Missouri legislators this week rejected a plan to slash income taxes for the wealthy and corporations, raise sales taxes largely on middle- and low-income consumers, and cut...
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K-12 School Funding Remains Below Pre-Recession Levels in at Least 34 States
States have made widespread and very deep cuts to education formula funding since the start of the recession, and those cuts linger in most states, our updated analysis of state school funding shows....
View ArticleThe Price of Kansas’ Costly Tax Cuts
No state did more to cut taxes in 2012 than Kansas, and no governor proclaimed as loudly as Kansas’ Sam Brownback that tax cuts would have minimal negative impact on public services. So it’s worth...
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Cuts in Federal Aid to States Dragging Down School Funding
About two-thirds of states are providing less funding per student for the current 2013-14 school year than they did before the recession, as we explained in our recent analysis of state school...
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