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Bronner appears to be on target
By By Bob Martin, The Alabama Scene
Last June at the Tuscaloosa Rotary Club State Retirement CEO David Bronner made the prediction that sometime in 2011 Alabama government’s financial problems would “hit the wall.”
His predictions were:
Fast forward to Bronner’s comments just two weeks back to the Alabama Bar Association when he said the “state’s lack of public revenue threatens its future as a productive and orderly economy,” and predicted that world tensions might drive oil to $300 a barrel this year.
Bronner says it is too late to save the state budget by cutting expenses. “You can’t cost cut your way out of General Fund problems when you have always run it on the cheap,” he said. The RSA chief predicted state government will slow to crawl, “and that includes courts, education, youth services and public safety,” he told the lawyer group.
He also says that state taxes will have to increase significantly in the next year to avoid a financial meltdown. Bronner believes those increased taxes will have to be placed on real property.
He predicts problems will happen by the time school starts.
As our governor consumes his days costing the state millions by tilting at bingomills and as the legislature fiddles while the people suffer, both branches of state government responsible for budgets sit and await another stimulus bailout from Barack the Magic Banker to save their collective butts.
That is so ironic.
As our governor and lawmakers contemplate holding off passage of the general fund budget until the summer, awaiting a magic cure from the President with more stimulus funds, their actions contradict our general practice of refusing to credit the feds of whatever description with anything.
Time is short, Bronner says. While opinions vary, the gloomiest projections out of Montgomery are for spending in the next fiscal year for both the Education Trust Fund and the General Fund to outstrip available money by $1 billion.
Of course, with Bronner’s state compensation which is approaching a half million annually and a generous state retirement after that, he has nothing to worry about. Perhaps all those who seek political office or appointment should be required to live a month on food stamps. And perhaps Bronner’s agency should get the same cut as what he is talking about for the general fund and the education budget.
The gloomy situation Bronner describes causes me to question the competence of most of those seeking to become governor or our state. Except for Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks, all of the candidates appearing at the Alabama Press Association candidate forum in Hoover recently had no plan to provide funding to pay for education and state government other than cutting both to the bone.
If Bronner is correct there won’t be any bone left by the time they arrive on Goat Hill.
Sparks’ plan to regulate and tax gambling and to provide a lottery for college scholarships may not be viable unless the voters approve a lottery and allow more gambling in Alabama, but he is talking about the huge hole we are digging for ourselves and is offering at least a partial solution.
Bob Martin is editor and publisher of The Montgomery Independent. Email him at: Bof@montgomeryindependent.com
