IDS Budget and Tax Committee

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Interesting endeavour.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

     Great job! Also, a $200 billion surplus seems a little too good to be true.

Yeah, I have been trying to think of ways around that.  If it's ok with Badger, we can add another item to the revenue category named "Moderator Credit" or some such.  This would consist of enough money for that $200 billion surplus to have been true in April 2010 when it was assigned.  However, each month $10 billion would be automatically deducted until the category was whittled down to zero, where it would likely remain.  In the future it can be used for adjustments and budgets that need to temporarily deviate from reality for whatever reason.

Under that plan, the IDS would be down to $90 billion in moderator credit; $0 would be reached in December 2011.

EDIT: Actually, it will take a tad more that $200 billion to create a $200 billion surplus (duh!).  Instead of subtracting a $10 billion a month, we should subtract 5% of that original number.  If it's ok with you PiT, I will PM Badger about this.

Also, looking at the bills and initiatives that need to be integrated into our budget, I think we will need to add all of the subheadings.   

Hmmmmm. I'll have to think about this. Actually many states do have a rainy day fund. And while $200 billion may seem a lot, spread out over 10 southern states (including TX and FL)? Maybe not that farfetched.

Anyone have an idea (or willing to check) what the southern states RL rainy day fund (or equivalent) status is like?

This website provides a graph showing the percentage of annual expenditures in 2008 that went into a rainy day fund.  Georgia, the state which IDS law is based off of, devoted between 5% and 10% of its annual expenditures to a rainy day fund.  Assuming that 10% of the IDS budget was added as a rainy day fund, that would create a rainy day fund of $32.21 billion.  Probably not enough to offset the deficit but it's something.

Looking at the underlying data for that graph, it appears Georgia's rainy day fund was only at 5.3% of its annual expenditures. Most other IDS states varied from Arkansas (zilch) to Texas (10.2%).

I have studiously determined that the $200 Billion surplus appears, sadly, to have primarily resulted from accounting errors and overestimation of future receipts which were heavily decimated by the recession. There's also mysterious withdrawls to a Cayman Islands account simply listed under "NCYnk".

Even 10% I'm afraid is not realistic when only Texas meets that level in RL. That said, based on TX having a hugely disproportionate share of regional revenues, some other states being in the 5-10% range, plus a bonus for Yelnoc finding this website and doing preliminary calculations (that's always looked upon favorably by the GM's Office ), I'll put the IDS Rainy Day Fund balance at exactly (coincidentally) $25 Bil (or nearly 8% of annual expenditures).

If anyone thinks my numbers are off or unfair in someway, though, I'm always ready to listen.

That's fair.  Darn you NCYnk!!!

I don't have access to any Regional level cash and never have. So even if it was me, it would have had to come through one of you guy's. Either a really stupid ID thief or a brilliant political hack/CYA setup is what has happened here. Speaking of the Caymen Islands, I have made a business of tracking the accounts of Senators especially involving known tax shelters and money laundering operations. Lets just say that a "certain former Senator" wasn't exactly being Mr. Clean in the spring of 2010. Sounds convenient that this would turn up.