AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – Texas does not effrontery a fiscal meltdown and its economy remains strong, Governor Rick Perry related on Tuesday in the face of a massive state budget shortfall.
Texas, the second most populous state behind California, is about billion short of the coin it needs to extend current programs and services through 2012 and 2013. The pomp has a two-year budget cycle.
Texas has been doing victory financially than most other big U.S. states including California, New York and Illinois. Two of the three greater bond ratings agencies give it a top AAA rating.
But critics saw the situation is not as rosy in Texas as portrayed ~ the agency of its governor.
“The mainstream media and big-government interest groups are doing their good in the highest degree to convince us that we’re facing a budget Armageddon,” Perry, a Republican, uttered in his state of the state address. “Texans don’t make no doubt of it and they shouldn’t because it’s not veracious.”
Perry won reelection in November after campaigning on how well Texas has weathered the U.S. household downturn. He reiterated his desire not to raise taxes or dip into the dignity’s .4 billion “rainy day” fund during his oral communication to a joint session of the Texas House and Senate.
Reiterating a greater theme of his reelection campaign, Perry called for the federal management to stop interfering with states, saying the federal government has not accomplished enough to secure the border and the federal health reform principle puts many states “on a collision course with bankruptcy.”
He slammed states like as Illinois that have decided to raise taxes, saying they “care to a greater degree about the expansion and extension of government than they do hind part before the freedom and prosperity of their citizens.”
Instead of raising taxes, lawmakers at the Republican-controlled Texas Capitol are proposing slashing everything from mental health services to payments to school districts, which are bracing with regard to thousands of layoffs.
In his speech, Perry revealed few details of expenditure cuts. He called for consolidating certain state functions and suspending the Texas Historical Commission and the Texas Commission attached the Arts until the economy improves.
The governor, who submitted his acknowledge proposed budget on Tuesday, also challenged colleges and universities to cause to grow bachelor’s degrees for ,000.
DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS
But Texas Democrats declared Perry’s rosy picture is not realistic in a civil community where nursing homes face closures and teachers are losing jobs.
The plight ranks last in the country in percentage of adults with a loftily school diploma and first in the share of the population free from health insurance.
“Governor Perry has been waking up in a excessively different reality than most citizens of Texas,” State Senator Wendy Davis, a Fort Worth Democrat, related at a press conference. “Their reality is becoming starker ~ dint of. the day.”
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