Texas Mini-Recovery?

This isn't even getting much local coverage.

AUSTIN — Texas tax revenues have bounced back to levels nearly equal to pre-recession levels, indicating that the economy is in recovery, the state's chief revenue estimator said Wednesday.

John Heleman said taxes on retail sales, motor vehicles and oil production are near 2008 levels, the last year before the recession. Only natural gas taxes are lagging, mostly because of low prices, he said during a quarterly briefing to the state House Ways and Means committee.

"The sales tax collection in 2008 was our all-time high, and then it went down in 2009," Heleman told the committee. "It's back up in 2011, and we're essentially back to where we were in 2008 in terms of sales tax collections."

Texas has no state income tax, sales taxes are the largest revenue generator in Texas. Oil production revenues are higher, even though the price per barrel trend peaked a month ago and is heading back down. These feed the Texas "rainy day fund", which is now projected to climb back up to $7BB in 2013.

People (and companies) spending more money, leading or lagging indicator?

UPDATE: We're not trouble-free in Texas

Yeah but they got this racist rock there or something so none of that matters.

Posted by: Bosk at October 06, 2011 08:09 PM (n2K+4)

posted by Dave In Texas at 08:00 PM

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