States' Budget Crisis Continue

[papau]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=578&e=9&u=/nm/20031204/bs_nm/economy_states_dc


States' Budget Crisis Continue
By Christina Ling

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Signs of rosier economic times ahead should not obscure the distress many U.S. states, in their worst crises since World War II, are still likely to experience during fiscal 2004, a report warned on Thursday. "Even if you've got an uptick on the revenue side we really want to emphasize that it's still going to be difficult," said Scott Pattison, director of the National Association of State Budget Officers which prepared the report for the National Governors Association. "Things went so far down that even (now that they are) going up a bit still things are pretty tough."


States say thin tax revenue collections and increased demands for social services since the 2001 recession created their worst fiscal crisis since World War II. <snip>


But more than two-thirds of the states budgeted for spending to rise less than 5 percent in fiscal 2004, matching the more than two-thirds of states that reported actual expenditure growth of less than 5 percent in fiscal 2003.


On the revenue side, some 36 states enacted tax and fee increases totaling a net $9.6 billion for fiscal 2004, after 2003 tax revenues in 31 states came in below estimates. <snip>

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In a separate report, the Rockefeller Institute said 26 states had cut spending on higher education for an overall cut of 3.2 percent for 2004, even as public university tuition and fees increased in all 50 states.

[JeebusH]

1. a good reply to "the economy is doing great" is ...

"so why are things so lousy on the state level"

[ramapo]

2. Between a rock and a hard place

Citizens think they shouldn't have to pay as much in taxes as they do yet want all the current services and more. Cut fraud, handouts, etc. yell our neighbors. Cut my taxes. Oh yeah, where do I sign up to get "tuition assistance" for my kid to attend college.

There's hell to pay for anybody in government who talks about raising taxes. So how to pay for everything? Unlike our federal govt, most states can't just say "charge it".

[begeegs]

3. Defer Federal Taxes to State Taxes

Am I the only one who thinks that this should be done?

Some sort of a grassroots campaign to send taxes to the State Governments and not to the Federal branch.

The federal government has become far too large and far too powerful and it is long past time to take away their toys.