Otter: Economy not as ‘robust’ as hoped

Gov. Butch Otter is addressing the AP Legislative Preview now, and he started off with a warning that he doesn’t view the state budget picture as being as “robust” as he’d hoped. “Less income has been realized in the sales tax area, which is the day-to-day monitor, if you will, of what the economy is doing,” he said. Because of that, he said, talk of tax relief earlier in the year has “diminished somewhat, simply because if the money isn’t there, the opportunity may not be.”

If tax relief is considered, Otter said his preference would “If we had the money, to look at the possibility of lowering the individual income tax from the present 7.86 level down to the corporate level, at 7.6. Then take those two as years will let us in the future, take those two down together. … That is my preference.”