Last month, I wrote that Tom Emmer’s claim that we have no budget deficit was off by $2.2 billion. Since then, I’ve updated my calculations with figures on Tim Pawlenty’s unallotments, and it turns out Emmer is actually wrong by $3.2 billion, or even more.

First, Emmer has claimed Government revenue will grow by almost $3 billion, which is nearly 10 percent. In truth, the total revenue available will increase by only $0.7 billion, or 2 percent.

Second, Emmer has claimed Government spending will grow by 17 percent. Based on that figure, he claims that if we just held spending stable, we would have no deficit. In truth, Pawlenty’s temporary budget gimmicks account for all but 4.5 percentage points of the increase. With all these gimmicks expiring, we will be left with a $3.2 billion deficit, unless Emmer wants to make Pawlenty’s budget gimmicks permanent.

Here’s how the math works out:

If we kept spending the same next biennium as it was in this biennium, we’d start with a $650 million surplus. But this biennium’s spending was lowered by a number of temporary budget gimmicks. Once we add those back into the budget, the picture changes drastically: 

• School funding was temporarily reduced by $1.7 billion as part of the school funding “shift.” This will be restored. Failure to restore this funding would be a $1.7 billion cut to schools.
• We also owe $1.1 billion to pay back the “shift.” This is different than the $1.7 billion I just mentioned — the previous line was restoring funding so it’s not cut every biennium, this one is paying back the borrowed money from last biennium. Remember, Pawlenty claimed that the school shift was not a cut — that’s why school funding will both be restored and paid back.
• Pawlenty’s $905 million in temporary unallotments will be automatically restored. As unallotments, these were temporary by nature — to reduce the the budget permanently, they would have to be permanently cut.
• An additional $994 million in cuts from the 2010 legislative session may or may not be restored. I’m not entirely clear on whether these were temporary fixes or permanent reductions.

That all adds up to a $4.1 billion deficit. Even if the cuts from 2010 are considered permanent reductions, it would be a $3.2 billion deficit. Either way, it’s a far cry from Emmer’s claim that there is a budget surplus.

Don’t buy it? I’ve done all the math in this spreadsheet.