Will Susan Combs Play Politics With The Revenue Estimate?

Finally, the mainstream media is paying attention to the forthcoming release of the revenue estimate for the 2010-2011 biennium. Of course, the Comptroller of Public Accounts takes center stage in this particular part of the budgeting and legislative process because it is the job of her office to compile the revenue estimate.

Former Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton McClellan Rylander Strayhorn was notorious for playing politics with her revenue estimates. Her office would issue revenue estimates that were tight as hell so that, two years later, she could announce a surplus, or so that the budget would look good for George W. Bush’s presidential run.

Texas Comptroller Susan Combs (who will actually be issuing her second revenue estimate since she took office in 2007, although how much work she and her staff did on the last one since it came out so quickly after she took office is unknown) is already talking about the potential revenue estimate:

It is in that climate that Texas Comptroller Susan Combs must assess how the state’s economy will perform years from now and put a number on it.

Combs said Wednesday that her team is watching the state’s economic fundamentals — home foreclosures, sales tax revenue, job creation — rather than the wild swings of the stock market to arrive at the revenue estimate, which will be delivered Jan. 12.

Budget experts say arriving at an accurate estimate in this climate will be difficult.

“You’re basically standing on top of a hill looking down into the darkness trying to figure out where the bottom is,” said Dale Craymer, chief economist for the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, a nonpartisan business group.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll see if she ends up playing politics with the revenue estimate like her predecessor did.

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