Texas tax revenues on the rebound

Reporter News reports:

Texas tax revenues have bounced back to levels nearly equal to pre-recession levels, indicating that the economy is in recovery, the state's chief revenue estimator said Wednesday.

John Heleman said taxes on retail sales, motor vehicles and oil production are near 2008 levels, the last year before the recession. Only natural gas taxes are lagging, mostly because of low prices, he said during a quarterly briefing to the state House Ways and Means committee.

"The sales tax collection in 2008 was our all-time high, and then it went down in 2009," Heleman told the committee. "It's back up in 2011, and we're essentially back to where we were in 2008 in terms of sales tax collections."

Via Ace of Spades.