RED FLAG: State Revenue Estimates Hosed

03 Economy, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Government
Who, Me?

ERRORS IN STATE REVENUE ESTIMATES GROWING IN SIZE AND FREQUENCY

WASHINGTON — States have been making more serious errors in estimating their revenues during tough economic times, according to a new report by the Pew Center on the States and The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government. This has significant implications for policy makers who need to know how much money they will have to spend on programs and services as they grapple with severe budget shortfalls.

The report, States’ Revenue Estimating: Cracks in the Crystal Ball, found that in fiscal year 2009—the first of the ongoing budget crisis—half the states overestimated revenues by at least 10.2 percent. That equated to an unexpected shortfall of nearly $50 billion in personal income, corporate income and sales tax revenues. In a year when state policy makers faced $63 billion in mid-year shortfalls—coming atop $47 billion they already had closed when crafting their budgets—this was a significant challenge. States had to close the gaps by cutting spending, increasing taxes and fees, tapping reserves and borrowing.

The study found that the primary culprit driving more serious and frequent errors is not the states’ processes, methods and techniques, but rather, the increasing volatility of the revenue streams themselves. This appears to result from states’ growing reliance on income taxes and the ways in which highly fluctuating capital gains affect income tax revenue.

Read more….

US Economy, US Federal Budget–To Cut or Not to Cut?

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, Budgets & Funding, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, IO Sense-Making, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy
Chuck Spinney Recommends...

ECONOMIC SCENE

Why Budget Cuts Don’t Bring Prosperity

By DAVID LEONHARDT

New York Times, February 22, 2011

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Remember the German economic boom of 2010?

Germany’s economic growth surged in the middle of last year, causing commentators both there and here to proclaim that American stimulus had failed and German austerity had worked. Germany’s announced budget cuts, the commentators said, had given private companies enough confidence in the government to begin spending their own money again.

Well, it turns out the German boom didn’t last long. With its modest stimulus winding down, Germany’s growth slowed sharply late last year, and its economic output still has not recovered to its prerecession peak. Output in the United States — where the stimulus program has been bigger and longer lasting — has recovered. This country would now need to suffer through a double-dip recession for its gross domestic product to be in the same condition as Germany’s.  Read more….

Does The U.S. Really Have A Fiscal Crisis?

By Simon Johnson, The Baseline Scenario, 24 February 2011

The United States faces some serious medium-term fiscal issues, but by any standard measure it does not face an immediate fiscal crisis.  Overindebted countries typically have a hard time financing themselves when the world becomes riskier – yet turmoil in the Middle East is pushing down the interest rates on US government debt.  We are still seen as a safe haven.

Yet leading commentators and politicians today repeat the line “we’re broke” and argue there is no alternative other than immediate spending cuts at the national and state level.

Which view is correct?  And what does this tell us about where our political system is heading?  Read more….

Continue reading “US Economy, US Federal Budget–To Cut or Not to Cut?”

Participatory Budgeting Practices, Games, Resources

03 Economy, Budgets & Funding, Collective Intelligence
Tom Atlee Across Phi Beta Iota

Dear friends,

Recently I've seen a swirl of information (mostly on the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation listserv) about participatory budgeting.  Below, you'll find a sampling of this info, in relatively raw form.  I do not know enough to sort it all out, but it looks really fascinating.

Most of this material is about online public budgeting exercises, but some of it also describes the kind of face-to-face, seriously empowered mass-participatory civic budgeting processes developed in Brazil which have spread widely in the last decade or so.

I had no idea there was so much activity in this arena.  Given

(a) the attention currently focused on the budget crisis,

(b) the dire impact of that crisis at all levels of government in so many places,

(c) the extreme consequences that could arise from this or that approach to addressing the crisis, and

Continue reading “Participatory Budgeting Practices, Games, Resources”

$100 What from How Many Trillions?

07 Other Atrocities, Budgets & Funding

Big Number Problem

Short Video Explains Hypocrisy of Proposed Cuts

Summary:  From the stack pictured here, imagine one penny being taken off.  That is the nature of the proposed cuts.  Watch short video.

Rule One: Mandatory entitlements and spending are PORK.  Anyone with an ounce of integrity would start there, eliminating subsidies, corporate entitlements, tax fraud tolerance, and so on.

Rule  Two: Discretionary spending is so heavily weighted toward defense and intelligence that it is EASY to find $250 billion for redirection.  Nothing would make the Phi Beta Iota collective happier than to see all those “butts in seats” swinging a pick-axe in a road gang.

Rule Three: If the government does not start taxing the wealthy and getting OUR financial house in order, deep changes in government are likely to be demanded by the public in 2011-2012.  A complete tax boycott is one reasonable option.

Tip of the Hat to Rutledge McGhee, SAS '70, at Facebook.

Internet Freedom–The Public Dialog Continues

Advanced Cyber/IO, Analysis, Augmented Reality, Autonomous Internet, Budgets & Funding, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Computer/online security, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Geospatial, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), International Aid, Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Methods & Process, Mobile, Open Government, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Real Time, Reform, Standards, Strategy, Technologies, Threats, Tools
Michel Bauwens

SOURCE: P2P Foundation Category:P2P Infrastructure

This is a specialization of our general Technology section, focusing more explicitely on the ‘true internet' or distributed P2P infrastructures.  It is being updated over the next week or so.

On the overall perspective of the P2P Foundation: What Digital Commoners Need To Do, a meditation on the strategic phases in the construction of a peer to peer world

Help us improve our definition of what a true P2P Infrastructure should be: Defining True P2P Infrastructures

Programmatic Statement for the creation of a world-wide user-controlled network based on a distributed architecture, by Raffael Kéménczy

Projects we find worthty of support:

  1. We Rebuild is a cluster of net activists who have joined forces to collaborate on issues concerning access to a free internet without intrusive surveillance
  2. Open Source Mesh Networking projects monitored by Open Source Mesh
  3. Various strategies to achieve Free Fiber to the home
  4. High Priority Free Software Projects: “The FSF high-priority projects list serves to foster the development of projects that are important for increasing the adoption and use of free software and free software operating systems.”

Projects to decentralize/distribute the internet:

Continue reading “Internet Freedom–The Public Dialog Continues”

URGENT EVOKE: The End of Old Government

Advanced Cyber/IO, Augmented Reality, Budgets & Funding, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Geospatial, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), International Aid, Key Players, Methods & Process, Mobile, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Real Time, Serious Games, Threats
Four Rules of EVOKING

EVOKE is a ten-week crash course in changing the world.

It is free to play and open to anyone, anywhere.

The goal of the social network game is to help empower people all over the world to come up with creative solutions to our most urgent social problems.

VOKE was developed by the World Bank Institute, the learning and knowledge arm of the World Bank Group, and directed by alternate reality game master Jane McGonigal.

EVOKE is for all ages; recommended age 13 and up.

LEARN HOW TO PLAY: the Five Secrets of the EVOKE Network.

URGENT EVOKE Home Page

James Madison: US Security Budget a Nightmare

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, Military
Chuck Spinney Sounds Off...

Madison's Nightmare: How Much Should We Spend for National Insecurity?

Chuck Spinney, FEB 3, 2011

The Atlantic (for James Fallows)

Read entire reference piece….

Brother Chuck makes  three key points:

1.  He quotes Madison, as we have, on the importance of public knowledge as the basis for the Republic keeping the government accountable and in check.

2.  He points out that the defense budget has never been audited, cannot be audited, and is both totally “out of control” and irresponsibly chaotic and grotesquely excessive.

3.  He proposes regular persistent cuts in the defense budget until such time as it can actually pass an audit.

Continue reading “James Madison: US Security Budget a Nightmare”