Reason Foundation

State Tax Collections Rise $62 Billion in 2011

Posted on April 14, 2012, 6:07pm | Harris Kenny

State tax collections increased $62.1 billion—or 8.9 percent—up to $763.7 billion in 2011, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s recently released 2011 Annual Survey of State Government Tax Collections. See the following figure for a breakdown of the $763.7 billion in state tax collections by category in 2011:

All 50 states experienced a positive increase in total tax collections; whereas in 2010 only 11 states experienced a positive increase. There are nine states where tax collection increased by 10 percent or greater in 2011, including:

• North Dakota (+44.5%)
• Alaska (+22.4%)
• California (+17.4%)
• Illinois (+15.3%)
• New Mexico (+15.1%)
• Wyoming (+14.1%)
• Idaho (+10.5%)
• Colorado (+10.4%)
• Minnesota (+10.1%)

In an accompanying press release, the U.S. Census Bureau highlights the following findings from the report:

States with the largest percent increase in motor fuels tax revenue were California (+80.3 percent), Alaska (+37.4 percent), North Dakota (+13.1 percent) and Kentucky (+10.6 percent).

Severance taxes—collection for removal or harvesting of natural resources (e.g., oil, gas, coal, timber, fish, etc.)—were up $3.5 billion, a 31.2 percent increase. This followed a 16.4 percent decrease in fiscal year 2010. The largest increases in severance tax revenue were seen in the West.

Revenue on taxes imposed distinctively on insurance companies and measured by gross or adjusted gross premiums (insurance premium sales tax) increased $593.8 million, up 3.8 percent. This followed a 5.3 percent increase in fiscal year 2010. The largest increases in insurance premium sales tax revenue were seen in the Northeast and South.

It’s important to note that state tax collection data does not include: employer and employee assessments for retirement and social insurance purposes; collections for the unemployment compensation taxes imposed by each of the state governments; or tax collections from local governments.

This data is only one piece of the state revenue puzzle. For context, in 2010 state tax collection accounted for approximately one third of total state government revenue. That being said, growing state tax collections suggest an ease to state budget woes. For related research on this topic, see Reason Foundation’s Tax and Budget Policy Research Archive.

Pew Finds States Barely Evaluate Tax Incentive Programs

Posted on April 12, 2012, 9:50pm | Harris Kenny

Today The Pew Center on the States published an eye opening report entitled Evidence Counts: Evaluating State Tax Incentives for Jobs and Growth. First, kudos to Pew for conducting this report and asking important questions about state tax policy. The report starts with a refrain commonly seen here on Reason Foundation’s Out of Control policy blog, which is that state governments are strapped for cash and need to both get their fiscal houses in order and foster economic growth.

Many policymakers feel the way to foster economic growth is by supporting politically favored businesses—as opposed to promoting economic freedom—so they pass lavish tax incentive programs totaling billions of dollars across the country in hopes of turning things around. Today’s Pew report addresses a critical follow up question: Do states measure to see if their tax incentives are having an impact? Their answer? Barely.

No state was spared in this analysis because every state has at least one tax incentive program, and most have several. Tax incentives come in the form of tax credits, exemptions and deductions; financial assistance for relocation or workforce expansion; and a variety of other mechanisms. Pew reviewed almost 600 documents and interviewed over 175 government officials and policy experts to evaluate whether or not states gauge the effectiveness of their tax incentives, and if they do, Pew examined how well they do it.

Ultimately, the report finds:

... (N)o state regularly and rigorously tests whether (its tax incentives) are working and ensures lawmakers considers this information when deciding whether to use them, how much to spend, and who should get them. Often, states that have conducted rigorous evaluations of some incentives virtually ignore others or assess them infrequently. Other states regularly examine these investments, but not thoroughly enough.

Since no state met Pew’s expectations for the study, it became a battle to avoid last place. States are evaluated under two criteria, scope and/or quality of evaluation, and are split into three categories listed below.

• 13 states are “leading the way,” which means they're “meeting both criteria for scope of evaluation and/or both criteria for quality of evaluation.”
• 12 states are achieving “mixed results,” which means they're “meeting only one of the criteria for scope and/or quality of evaluation.”
• 26 states (including the District of Columbia) are “trailing behind,” which means they're “not meeting any of the criteria for scope or quality of evaluation.”

Below is an infographic provided with the report detailing where states rank and highlighting four recommended steps for state policymakers:

For a detailed evaluation of state performance, see page 32 of the report available online here. For more, check out Reason Foundation’s Government Reform Tax and Budget Policy Research Archive and State Government Privatization Research Archive for ideas on ways that policymakers can turn things around in their states.

Discord in the Fed

Posted on April 12, 2012, 5:07pm | Anthony Randazzo

There is a bit of discord at the Fed. After Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota said earlier this week that the FOMC should consider raising interest rates later this year rather than maintain zero interest rate policy through 2014 (as is the current position of the Fed), vice chairwoman Janet Yellen remarked that ZIRP might actually need to be extended as far as 2015. The former San Francisco Fed President further commented in her speech at the Money Marketeers club of New York University that there has been "a significant shortfall in the overall amount of monetary policy stimulus since early 2009."

Then, at a meeting of the National Economics Club I was attending this afternoon, Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser note that when QE2 was launched in 2010 that unemployment was soaring and inflation was nill, and that because unemployment is falling and inflation is picking up that rather than talk about the need for QE3 we should be looking to tighten monetary policy.

After making this remark he backed off a bit and said he wasn't suggesting we should actually tighten monetary policy but rather just take it as a hypothetical response relative to the perceived need for QE3. 

Discord indeed.

At least the Federal Reserve appears to be about as conflicted as the blogosphere is on what to do and when to do it.

Washington's Road to Economic Decline

Posted on April 12, 2012, 4:55pm | Adrian Moore

I have a column up at Real Clear Markets today about the "long history of bi-partisan bonehead thinking on Capitol Hill about transportation, jobs and the economy."

It is no surprise that in an economic slump, or any other time really, politicians would focus on the jobs "created" by transportation spending. Leaving aside the flawed logic that taking money from one group of people to fund work by others in any real way "creates" jobs. The stopgap transportation bill is a poster child for how Washington has long been thinking about transportation, which explains the decisions it has made that have undermined economic growth in the United States.

I go on to explain how transportation infrastructure really effects the economy, with some emphasis on how disastrous is our federal, state and local government's decisions to allow congestion to continue growing. I conclude:

Our economy needs an oil change in the form of revamping transportation policy to focus on providing an effective transportation system that fuels economic growth rather than political ambitions and the creation of jobs "immediately," as Rep. Pelosi put it. Two years ago, a colleague and I sketched out in some detail what a more effective highway trust fund reform would look like. The most important things we focused on were transportation investments that maximize transportation benefits and mobility, and funding transportation with user fees, not taxes. Our economy depends too much on effective transportation for it to be a political pony to ride.

Read the whole thing here.

Barry Ritholtz On Housing Pessimism

Posted on April 10, 2012, 2:15pm | Anthony Randazzo

Last Friday, Washington Post columnist Barry Ritholtz broke down the pessimist's view on the housing market. With spring comes a traditional uptick in housing data, inspiring memory challenged journalists to wax philosophical about the bottom of the housing market finally being upon us and blue skys forever to come. But here are some reasons why that view is misinformed (regular readers will note these are not new concepts to this blog).

First, the shadow inventory:

"What is shadow inventory? This is important, as lowering the total inventory of houses for sale is how prices stabilize and sales volume moves higher... It includes bank-owned real estate, distressed houses not yet for sale, short sales and delinquencies that have not yet defaulted. Foreclosure properties are also in the shadow inventory. These houses will eventually become part of the total supply for sale. Although there is no official count, estimates of potential shadow inventory run as high as 10 million.

"That’s not all. There’s also a huge overhang of underwater homeowners — whose houses are worth as much as 25 percent less than what is owed. The owners don’t qualify for a mortgage modification. They may be delinquent but aren’t in default. Two-thirds of all U.S. houses have mortgages. Of those, an estimated 21 to 29 percent of the mortgages are underwater, or up to 16 million houses. When prices finally do rise, we can expect many of these no-longer-underwater owners to put their houses up for sale. If only one in three do, that is another 5 million homes in inventory."

Second, home affordability:

"Are houses affordable? Here’s where every discussion of affordability seems to start: the National Association of Realtors Home Affordability Index. In my view, it’s worthless. Why did I come to such a harsh conclusion? The index offers little insight into how affordable housing actually is. In the biggest run up in housing prices in American history, the index never dipped into the level of unaffordable. Imagine that.

"As ridiculous as that sounds, it’s even more absurd when we look at the NAR methodology, which ignores factors such as family savings rates, cash assets, consumer credit, indebtedness, credit servicing obligations, inflation and income gains. The affordability index looks at the wrong things and ignores the important ones. The correct question is not whether the houses are affordable in theory. Rather, it’s whether potential buyers can afford to buy them."

Third, how cheap house prices are:

"Are the prices cheap? Few had forecast the steep drop in median house prices. Some regions that were excessively frothy during the boom — California, Las Vegas, South Florida and Arizona — have seen much greater price drops. Other areas had laws (Texas) or financial conventions (New York City) that mandated significant down payments and other prudent requirements and avoided much of the bloodshed. The conventional wisdom seems to be that prices have stabilized and are overdue to start rising. The data, however, suggest something else. The most recent Standard & Poor’s / Case-Shiller index of national prices (January) shows prices are still falling, about 4 percent year-over-year."

Fourth, asset prices follwing a bubble:

"How do asset prices behave following a bubble? Regardless of the asset class — stocks, bonds, commodities, houses, etc. — assets do not merely stabilize. We have never seen a stock market run up into bubble territory and then revert to fair value. Instead, we careen wildly past that level, to deeply undersold and exceedingly cheap. That is the marvelous mechanism of markets. It is how assets are repriced, distressed holdings liquidated, capital markets stabilized, fools revealed, speculators punished — and money returned to its rightful owner, the prudent investor.

For a lasting recovery, we need to see houses cheap enough that they fall into “good hands” — long-term owners who can afford their mortgage payments. Until that happens, houses will stumble along the bottom of the price range. The nation could easily see another 10 percent to the downside — assuming nothing else goes wrong. This would actually be good news. The government interventions (first-time buyer tax credit, mortgage modifications and foreclosure abatements) have prevented prices from finding their own levels. If they did, houses would be much more affordable, and buyers would come out in droves.

That is how a true housing recovery begins.

Read the rest of the piece at Washington Post here.