New Report Shows That State Budget Cuts Are Not Keeping Up With Economic Decline As North Dakota voters hit the polls today to vote, a report has jus

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New Report Shows That State Budget Cuts Are Not Keeping Up With Economic Decline

As North Dakota voters hit the polls today to vote, a report has just hit local news that shows a 6% decline in the economy up to the end of 2015 - with 2016 figures not yet known.

June 14th, 2016

The issue of Economic Reality has once again shown up in a new report issued on Primary Election Day.

The Fargo Forum is this morning reporting a breaking story about the state's economy - and it is not good news, nor is it surprising.

Both agriculture and petroleum, the two main drivers of North Dakota's wealth, saw significant declines last year.

Mining, dominated by oil and gas extraction, plunged 34.2 percent from 2014 to 2015. During the same period, agriculture declined 11.6 percent.

Bright spots in the economy included health care, which grew 6.7 percent, educational services, which rose 6.6 percent, and utilities, up 6.5 percent, according to BEA figures.

General Fund Budget Increases

Oddly, what are called "bright spots" are industries where increased activity means consumers are paying more for the same services - while the rest of the economy is hurting. (Increased health care spending is not a positive story.)

There is no mention of how, during the good times, government spending far exceeded the growth of the economy. Now, as the trajectory is downward, the cuts are not keeping up either -and when they do, they are in the wrong areas, designed to make the situation more painful than it needs to be.

These figures once again predicted harsher state budget cuts to come. Cuts that will not be fully known till after the Primary Election.

As we have stated for months now, the next legislature is going to have a very hard time dealing with the cuts needed to balance the next budget since most of the Rainy Day Funds have been drained to prop up this budget.

An ironic point for election day when the rain shows no signs of stopping in Bismarck today.

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Dustin Gawrylow, Managing Director

North Dakota Watchdog Network

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