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The Texas Tribune recently ran an article claiming that cities and counties in Texas were "penny-pinching" in order to cope with a slowing economy, but given recent local budgets, can that really be true?
We've seen major cities and counties across the state pass huge multibillion-dollar budgets in recent weeks, including Harris County, the biggest county in the state, passing a nearly $3 billion budget that included over $400,000 to sponsor the Gay Softball World Series.
This points to the simple fact that government spending, even on the local level, isn't slowing down at all. That's the case made by economist Vance Ginn, who said, "They got the sugar high from spending all this money; now they want to claim that they don't have enough money, but it's really just a lack of sound budgeting on their part."
He says that sugar high began during COVID, when huge amounts of federal cash were being sent to local authorities and were immediately blown on special interest projects, rather than being reinvested into the statutory requirements of local governments.
Ginn says that at this point, not even a massive economic slowdown or even an economic crash could stop that spending. According to him, "They continue to spend more, and then they issue debt or other things to continue to have their budget increase year after year, even during recessions."
He says the amount of taxpayer money that local governments constantly want to spend, even during economic downturns, is "crazy." He went on to say that it would be better if local governments actually did do some penny-pinching and returned the money they saved to the more productive private sector.