Sales Taxes Still Sliding Downward

I'm certainly glad that Governor Rick Perry has decreed there is no recession in the great state of Texas. If he hadn't assured us of this, I would probably have been fooled into thinking Texas is sliding deeper into trouble each month after viewing the sales tax figures compiled by the Comptroller's office.

Evidently Texas Comptroller Susan Combs (pictured) didn't get the good news from our delusional governor, because she admitted yesterday that once again the sales tax figures for the state have gone down (as they have been doing each month for a while now).

The sales tax collected for the month of January was about $1.66 billion. That may sound like a lot, but it's a whopping 14.2% less than January of 2009. In fact, things are so bad that Texas, a state that had a balanced budget after the last legislative session, is looking at a deficit of over $8 billion when the next legislature meets.

But our Republican Comptroller assures us that good times are on the way. She says she expects the decline in sales taxes to moderate, and actually show a growth in the second quarter. She doesn't say how she expects this can be done in an economy that's still losing jobs.

I guess we'll just have to trust in our Republican overlords. After all, if you tell a big lie long enough, it finally becomes the truth -- doesn't it?