When Gov. Josh Shapiro gave his Feb. 6 budget address, he said it would include more than $46 billion in revenue collections. But the number-crunchers in the state’s Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) put a damper on Shapiro’s lofty projections this week, dropping those projections by more than a billion dollars.

“The IFO’s projected revenues for 2024-25 are $825 million lower than the Shapiro administration’s, and a whopping $8 billion lower over five years, guaranteeing massive tax hikes or sweeping program cuts in the future,” state Senate Republicans said in a statement.

“We just have a different take [than the Shapiro administration],” IFO Director Matthew Knittel told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Feb. 20. “One is more optimistic than the other.”

The deficit numbers were even worse, said Knittle. “We have a larger deficit of about $1 billion at the front end, and by 2028-2029, the deficit is $4.5 billion.”

Read more at broadandliberty.com