Chart 1: Governor Warner has proclaimed a budget crisis because recent projections of state revenue (middle line) - made August, 2002 - are much less than the projections (top line) - made December, 2000 - that were available when Warner was running for governor. However, the state budget has grown much faster than was required to keep up with population and inflation (the bottom line). If the state had limited expenditures to the amount required to keep up with population and inflation, there would have been a $2 billion budget surplus this year.
Chart 2: This is the same as the previous chart with two differences: It also shows revenue projections made in December, 1996, before the "dot com bubble" and projections made in December 2001. The currently projected revenues for FY2003 are still $700 million more than the revenues that had been projected in 1996. If the state had limited expenditures during the dot com boom to the amounts projected before the boom, there would have been a $700 million budget surplus this year instead of a "budget crisis".
Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance