Latest Revenue Estimates Show Even More "Surplus" Revenue

The news Louisiana lawmakers have been waiting for is in.
The state's Revenue Estimating Committee released new estimates last night of the projected budget surplus for the ongoing fiscal year, and for the year beginning in July. The answers:

• An additional $118 million for the current year.
• An additional $128 million for next year.

This tells us nothing, of course, about whether this "extra" revenue can truly be considered a surplus. It's only obviously a surplus in the sense that it's money coming in that the state wasn't expecting at this time yesterday.

Now comes the interesting part: lawmakers get to decide whether they'd rather devote the newfound surplus to meeting unmet infrastructure needs-- from education to transportation to health care-- or whether they'd prefer to enact a bunch of tax cuts. Let the fireworks begin!