If you asked a friend or relative for $20 to buy something you really needed. However, when you paid for it, the item only cost $15, what would you do with the rest?
Would you:
a) Go to McDonald's and celebrate your newly found income with a happy meal
or
b) Give the change back to the person who gave the money in the first place
If you picked "a" then you must be in state government.
I have heard many speak of the "revenue" surplus in the state's coffers. You see, we (meaning Louisiana) underestimated how much taxes we (meaning Louisiana) were going to collect.
So now, we (meaning Louisiana) have more money than we need. We balanced a budget without this surplus and have paid all the bills.
Now everyone wants a piece o the surplus pie. Everyone from DOTD to teachers wants this money to come to them. In fact spending this surplus (and another one, by the way) will most likely be the dominant theme in April's regular legislative session.
Even so-called conservative legislators are speaking about the best ways to "spend the surplus."
Here's a novel idea... return the surplus to the taxpayers.
If you didn't need everything we (meaning us) sent you last year. Then why don't you return the difference?
Yes, we (meaning us) know that if you (meaning Louisiana) knew there would be more money, you would have spent it already.
So it wasn't your (meaning Louisiana) great frugality that caused us to have a surplus. But we (meaning us) still think the fair and right thing to do is return the money you didn't spend.
Of course this makes too much sense to ever be seriously considered by you (meaning Louisiana).
May the blog be with you.
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