As a child growing up on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, we used race sailboats against a retired General - Sterling Wright - who made a regular habit of beating not only us, but all other boats.
He was a good sailor, but he was great at knowing the tides. And, the way he regularly whipped everybody was by making sure he knew every current, eddy and channel.
He knew that sailing against the tide was no fun. But he further knew that any time the tide worked against you on the first half of the race you had to go a lot faster if you merely wanted to hold steady.
Fast forward 30 years.
In February, I was the only member of my party and one of the few members of the General Assembly to vote against the budget. I did so not because of the stimulus money, but because I felt it was built on faulty assumptions that were overly optimistic.
As I said at the time, I cannot support a budget when I think we will need to come back and trim some more. That is because the “trimming” always needs to be more severe as you wait longer into the fiscal year.
Pollard on HB 1600 (See the Video)
In a 2006 JLARC review of the state revenue forecasting, when compared with all the states, Virginia was ranked in the group having the second largest forecasting errors. At that time, Virginia’s overall absolute percentage forecast error was 6.7% and the 50-state average was 4.6%.
I do not pretend that I am the smartest person in the room and can fix all the forecasting problems. But I do know that when the research arm of the General Assembly says to be more cautious with revenue forecasting, we need to heed their advice.
Some days, you just wish you had been wrong.
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