A "cat got your tongue?" day in KY media

Kentucky's state government revenue for fiscal year ending June 30, 2008 was $8.664 billion, 1.1% higher than it was the previous year.

The big news was announced early this morning and, strangely, the state's mainstream media seems to be a little slow picking up on the news.

This substantial evidence that spending and not revenue "shortfall" is our problem would be huge news if the opposite were found to be true.

Of course, that won't change the focus on tax increases when the story finally hits the big media outlets.

In a press release that hit my email box at 8:41 am, Budget Director Mary Lassiter said "this is the lowest level of growth we’ve seen since 2002. Despite the national income tax rebate checks, our sales tax growth is being substantially eroded due to inflation, primarily in the energy and food sectors. We will need to see improved growth in many of our revenue accounts to make the FY09 budgeted revenue estimate."

Sales tax receipts for the year were up $60.1 million or 2.1%. We may want to figure out how to start spending less money in case we find ourselves with an actual decrease in revenue.