How is the Economy Doing? Watch the Tax Receipts at All Levels of Government.

For the 2009 third quarter, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) claims that the Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) had a change of +1.2%. On the other hand, the Rockefeller Institute of Government reports that overall sales tax collections in the third quarter were down 8.2% from last year's levels, and this is the fourth quarter in a row that year-over-year declines were posted. For the 44 states reporting third-quarter results, overall tax revenues declined 10.7 percent, compared to the same period a year earlier. The most significant decline occurred in the corporate income tax category, with a drop-off of 19.4 percent.

Ok, someone is not telling the real truth. One is an count of money remitted by businesses in satisfaction of taxes collected from real consumers processing real retail transactions. The other, if you read the BEA methodology, has the word estimate throughout the report. My money is on the actual count, not the estimate provided by the BEA. Folks, it is all about the "confidence game" with the government. I, for one, want to know the truth, which I believe our government is incapable of providing to its citizens.