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Use All of the Rainy Day Fund: A Balanced Approach to Balancing the State Budget

  

Author:
Dick Lavine /(512) 320-0222 x 101

April 5, 2010

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Texas should use the Economic Stabilization Fund, commonly called the Rainy Day Fund, to maintain essential services during tough economic times and to stimulate our economy. The constitutional purpose of the fund is to maintain vital state services during economic downturns. The Legislative Budget Board forecasts that the fund will have $9.6 billion available for appropriation through 2012-13. The Legislature has in the past often spent all of the Rainy Day Fund to maintain the state’s investments in critical public structures and systems such as education. It should do so again in 2011.