Wheels Are Coming Off California's Ballyhooed Comeback

[Geee]

Investors Business Daily:

State Finances: Stop the music. All the merriment over the California recovery may have been a bit premature. Tax revenues are way down this year in the Golden State, and this could throw the books back into the red.

 

Not so Golden State

 

Here is the sobering analysis released last week from the Rockefeller Institute of Government, which monitors state spending and revenues:

 

"After four years of uninterrupted growth, states' tax collections saw a decline in the first quarter of 2014. Preliminary figures for the second quarter of 2014 indicate further declines in personal income-tax collections and possibly in overall state taxes."

 

Then came the show stopper:

 

"Most of the decline is attributable to a single state — California — where personal income-tax collections declined by $2 billion, or 11.1%. If we exclude California, personal income tax collections show a growth of 2.0% in personal income tax collections and a growth of 0.6% in overall state tax collections."