DUr's! Help A Girl Out...

[lilithsrevenge12]

I'm currently researching an article on the whole fiscal cliff part II thing (including part I as well, since they didn't really get anything done in the long haul), and I need some help. I'm looking for a good place to collect information on Texas' budget from 2011-2012. I saw today that they have a surplus in their budget (mostly because of cuts to entitlement programs), and I'm thinking of comparing what they have done with their state economy to what Republicans want in the national budget. Thanks!

I feel like Texas is the poster child for how republicans would like our national budget to look like. From the little I've learned so far, they made all the cuts to their budget that republicans hope to make nationally (health, education, roads, etc.) I feel like the problems Texas is facing now, is almost a foreshadowing of what might happen if they get all the cuts they want to "entitlement" programs. That's where the idea of comparing it nationally comes from. Not necessarily a compare and contrast, but what could be the outcome if republicans get their way.

[SunsetDreams]

1. Texas Budget Surplus Proves as Contentious as a Previous Shortfall

AUSTIN, Tex. — The last time Texas lawmakers began a legislative session, a cost-cutting fervor filled the marble hallways of the Capitol in January 2011 as the state faced a budget shortfall of as much as $27 billion. Legislators warned of sparing nothing and no one from deep cutbacks — from highways, to prisons, to health care for the poor, to programs for preschool children.

....

Education advocates and Democratic lawmakers have called for the Legislature to restore some or all of the $5.4 billion cuts made to public education in the 2011 session. But Republican leaders and other fiscal conservatives have expressed reluctance to finance anything beyond growth in student enrollment particularly when a lawsuit against the state over how it finances public education will not be resolved until later in the year

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/us/texas-budget-surplus-proves-as-contentious-as-a-previous-shortfall.html?_r=0

I'm not sure where you can get a break down of the Texas budget. I don't think you can apply a state budget to the national budget. Are you thinking that is the way to a surplus, if the Nation followed Texas? I'm a little confused by your post.