Northeast Budget and Tax Committee

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

what do you need help with exactly?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

We don't have the numbers for any revenue or expenditures in the region. The last time this was updated was 2009, I believe. That, or I am struggling hard with the search function. Now, the tax rates are 2005 rates of each regional state. Honestly you can just give us some good numbers to work with and we can make it work. It doesn't need to be the most difficult task ever.

so you want to start from scratch based off RL numbers as a baseline?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

If you haven't done a budget before and you don't have any laws on the books saying what the rates are, I think it makes sense to start with the RL rates for a characteristic single state that would then be extrapolated to the total population. 

Would that work for what you are trying to do?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I suppose New York would be ideal as our largest state and capital's location.

Those factors aren't relevant to budget calculations, but it just so happens NY is a good choice due to its socioeconomic diversity and being fairly average for the region in terms of mean and median personal income.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Okay, here's what I've found so far for a RL baseline.
This is the RL NY state revenues for capita:
http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/year_revenue_2012NYdn_13ds1n_6063103040#usgs302
and this is the RL NY state spending per capita:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2012NYdn_13ds1n_F0201000#usgs302

total pop of region is 56.3 million

If we can get the NY tax rates (which I haven't found yet) we can use this.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I'll continue searching for data. Thanks for your help, Shua.

I'd prefer to use NE:NY GDP (which is about 2.5) rather than NE:NY population (which is closer to 3.0) for the calculation. Does this seem like an acceptable approach to you?

Yes, that makes sense.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

sorry about the federal funding question - somehow I thought you'd asked something else.   Whatever federal funding there is, is directed to certain programs, so there's not much you can do with it as far as deciding how it's spent.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Thank you, Shua. Have other regional budgets simply ignored federal funding in the past?

pretty much, except in the case of stimulus funds that weren't already allocated - but any of that has been used up by now.  however, if you need an idea of how much money is spent in the region in a certain area (ex. education), I can let you know.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

how are you figuring the revenue, Nix?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

The federal contribution for education is $12 billion for elementary and secondary, and $9.5 billion for higher ed.

Nix, it sounds like you have found some good sources, but for some reason the income tax figures look like they're quite a bit less (maybe half) of I would expect.
Don't forget to add in pension spending.

I have the GDP of the region at 3.2 trillion. Is that what you have?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

The site I've been using has pensions listed as a separate category, so that's what I was going from, Organize it  however you want - just remember it's a major part of the budget.

Before you consider a surplus, I'd suggest taking another look to make sure your spending is at an adequate level.

Here are RL figures for major spending for all NE states combined:
Pensions:  37 billion
Education (state level funding only, incl. higher education): 44 billion
Public Safety: 21.6 billion
Transportation: 31.1 billion
(Health care is another major area, but with the national healthcare program there is less need for it in the regions except for public health)

There may be money to be saved in these areas, but greatly reducing spending quickly will have consequences.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I'll take another look at the budget document that's served as my primary source. Are your figures for public safety and transportation for state-level spending only?

Yes.
I looked at this website, and added the figures for these categories from each state in the region.