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Comment by tsotha | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, the state with the surplus. The weather in Texas isn't anything to write home about, but in every way that matters it's a more competently run state.

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They probably have a surplus because they underfund health care system, among other things... (I remember being surprised at the full-time firefighting budget cuts not long before the huge fires two years ago)

EDIT: Oh and apparently there is no surplus

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/04/us-usa-deficits-st...

the article cited was from last year.

from last week: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/us/texas-budget-surplus-pr...

"A boom in revenues from sales taxes as well as taxes from oil and natural gas production have given Texas a budget surplus that the state comptroller has estimated at $8.8 billion."

Of course this will start a new debate about how it's only a surplus because of previous budget cuts, but that's for another time and place. Still others will crunch the numbers differently and say there was actually a deficit. Politics is fun.

Texas has really crappy Medicaid coverage, but is anyone here really going to base their decision on which state to live in based on that?

2011? Try to keep up.

Meh, original comment about shitty services holds

http://www.texasobserver.org/how-the-budget-got-cut/

I don't see anything in that article that isn't sensible. There's no reason government expenditures have to keep going up in good times and bad.

Quite the contrary, when times are bad, social services are needed more, not less.

In broad strokes states have essentially two functions - education and social services. Of course when you make substantive cuts that's where they're going. There's no "right" amount of social services - as a state you pay for what's reasonable at the time given budgetary constraints.

It's no coincidence the Economy in Texas has recovered while the economy in California hasn't. This is particularly galling given the number of tech companies in Northern California with highly compensated employees.

In any event, California didn't slip into a budgetary black hole by coincidence. State employees are grossly overcompensated, and much of that compensation takes the form of generous retirement benefits. The state will be raising taxes and using budgetary gimmicks for decades because the real problem is unfunded pension liabilities, not delivery of current services.

> Yeah, the state with the surplus.

You mean California?

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-california-budget-surplus...

There's a big difference between an actual surplus and a "surplus" based on accounting gimmicks. You can only pretend California is in surplus by pretending to believe the state retirement systems really will return 8% on average.

Nobody believes that.

Please explain which gimmicks you think are currently active. Your knowledge of California budgets seems to be a few years dated. We've reformed a lot about the budget process in the last few years. Up to and including how many votes are needed.

There's a lot wrong in California, but a lot of people are barking up the trees from years ago instead of the ones that are real problems today.

I put the biggest gimmick right there in my post. What does "how many votes are needed" have to do with returns on state retirement funds?

This is not barking up trees from years ago. They have done nothing to address the structural problems in the state budget.

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