Overview

State budget decisions are often based on short-term considerations or narrow criteria that create larger costs over the long term. This short-term bias in budgeting takes a variety of forms: governments often fail to maintain adequate rainy-day funds. States take on excessive debt. They sell off public assets for short-term gain while compounding long-term revenue shortfalls. State agencies also tend to ignore operating expenses when planning capital projects. They also have a history of underfunding public-employee pension and benefit programs. These mistakes leave future administrations with large budget deficits that lead to unnecessary tax increases or painful cuts in public programs.

MASSPIRG promotes sound and transparent budgeting practices.