The August 6th New York Times included a lengthy Michael Cooper article titled “Governments Go to Extremes as the Downturn Wears On” recounting cutbacks in government programs in Hawaii, Georgia, and Colorado. In 2,632 words we do find out that Hawaii owns “billions of dollars to a pension system that has only 68.8 percent of the money it needs to cover its promises” and that Clayton County Georgia spends $8 million a year on its bus system, and that Colorado Springs saved $1.2 million by shutting off streetlights this winter, but no where are we told just how big … Continue Reading

The Washington Post’s Michael Fletcher had a report July 1st on state budgets that reads more like an opinion editorial than a staff report. Fletcher wrote,

Nothing less than the nation’s nascent economic recovery hangs in the balance. States say that if they do not find financial rescue they will have to cut services and workers. That would deliver a potentially crippling blow to the economy, which needs higher employment levels to fatten wallets, promote spending, bolster tax revenue and reduce dependence on expensive social services.

States face a combined deficit of $89 billion in the fiscal year that

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