WTF !! TEXAS : THE HUGE STATE BUDGET CRISIS NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT !!

[link to finance.yahoo.com]

Texas: The Huge State Budget Crisis Nobody Is Talking About
Posted Jan 03, 2011 12:07pm EST by Joe Weisenthal and Gus Lubin in Recession, Politics
Related: MUB, LQD, JNK, TLT, TBT, HYG, AGG
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From The Business Insider

You know the story and you know the names: states like Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and California are supposed to be in huge financial trouble thanks to bloated governments, business-unfriendly regulations, and strong public sector unions.

After a crisis-free 2010, investors are expected to punish these hotbeds of bad governance in a muni bond market rout, at least if pundits like Meredith Whitney are correct. (See:
Muni Bonds: The Next New Crisis?)

But there's one state, which is fairly high up on the list of troubled states that nobody is talking about, and there's a reason for it.

The state is Texas.

This month the state's part-time legislature goes back into session, and the state is starting at potentially a $25 billion deficit on a two-year budget of around $95 billion. That's enormous. And there's not much fat to cut. The whole budget is basically education and healthcare spending. Cutting everything else wouldn't do the trick. And though raising this kind of money would be easy on an economy of $1.2 trillion, the new GOP mega-majority in Congress is firmly against raising any revenue.

So the biennial legislature, which convenes this month, faces some hard cuts. Some in the Texas GDP have advocated dropping Medicade altogether to save money.