Texas Scorecard By Cary Cheshire March 23, 2020
Swift action will need to be taken to ensure the most savings are achieved and essential spending—like public school teacher salaries and property tax relief for taxpayers—is protected.While the effects of the Chinese coronavirus on physical health and well-being aren’t well-known, the economic effects of the preventative measures governments across the globe are taking are already sending shockwaves through our economic system. Right now, service industries are laying off staff at a breakneck pace as citizens stay home either out of personal fear of the virus or out of orders to do so by their state and local governments.
Those tremors—coupled with a Saudi Arabia-Russia oil price war and Chinese demand drop that’s dropped the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate down to the low $20s (down from its 52-week high of $66.60) and a general slowdown of every economic sector—mean that Texas families are in for a rough go.
Already, Goldman Sachs and other financial institutions are telling consumers to prepare for the worst.“We now assume a peak 20 percent decline in the level of manufacturing output by April. This effect captures the impact of reduced domestic demand for non-food goods, reduced foreign demand for U.S. goods, exports, supply chain disruptions, and plant closures,†the bank wrote a few days ago, also predicting that it would take a long time for the economy to pull itself out of the ditch.
More:
https://texasscorecard.com/state/state-leaders-must-start-slashing-spending-now/
