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The literalists in the Bush2 administration are implementing what even
Reagan and Thatcher dared not do – re engineer a permanently divided haves vs
have-nots society. - KWC With
Deadline Near, States Are in Budget Discord
By Jodi Wilgoren, NYT, National, June 27,
2003 @ http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/27/national/27STAT.html Excerpts: CHICAGO, June 26 — With 46 states facing the end of their fiscal years on
Monday, 9, an unusually high number, remain locked in disputes over their
budgets. This worsening fiscal crisis comes
after a spring in which states have made record tax increases and spending
cuts, and nearly wiped out their rainy day reserves, a nationwide survey
released today reports. The new data, compiled by the National Governors Association
and the National Association of State Budget Officers, describe a fiscal bad
dream descending into nightmare this spring as a languishing economy met upward
spiraling health-care costs. Thirty-seven
states chopped a total of $14.5 billion off the current year's budgets, most
cutting services across the board and nearly half laying off workers, the survey says, while governors in 29 states proposed a total of $17.5
billion in new taxes and fees for next year, the most since 1979. Overall state spending is expected to decline next year by
0.1 percent — the first such drop since 1983 — after just a 0.3 percent rise
this year. The average annual increase since 1979 is 6.2 percent. "Unfortunately, the news is pretty bad, and I think
it's going to get a little worse," said Ray Scheppach, executive director
of the governors' group, who
last year described the states' budget outlook as the bleakest since World War
II and today extended that to the War of 1812. "It's
clearly the worst since we've been keeping statistics." Although the survey was based on figures from budgets
proposed in the spring, the financial picture for most states has not improved
since then. Legislators and
governors in several states remain at loggerheads over how to slice the
ever-shrinking pie, leaving the looming possibility of government shutdowns if
budgets are not signed — or stopgaps passed — by Tuesday. 2… In the 2003 fiscal year, 28 states made sweeping cuts
across agencies — 2.5 percent in Michigan, 3.4 percent in West Virginia and 5
percent in Hawaii — while 22 used reserve funds, 17 fired employees and 10 put
workers on furlough. Eight states offered early retirement, 10 cut aid to municipalities,
and 10 added fees. Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire and Rhode Island froze
hiring. "It gets very human, because you're going to see
reductions in services to people that have faces, that have needs," said
Dirk Kempthorne, the Republican governor of Idaho, where everything but
education has been cut 10 to 15 percent in the last two years, despite two-year
increases in the sales tax (one cent) and cigarette tax (29 cents). Governor Kempthorne noted that for
human-services programs like Medicaid "eligibility requirements will be
increased, so you'll see folks who are going without." This
article about the National Governor’s Assoc. mentions actions by half a dozen
other states. This is real, not
just campaign fodder. No wonder
Pres Bush suddenly became interested in solving the Palestinian and Israeli
quaqmire. He needs good press and
photo ops. For
a no-nonsense assessment by a literate mother, read Anna Quindlen’s latest in
Newsweek – The
Bottom Line: Bogus
@ http://www.msnbc.com/news/929686.asp?0dm=s14Ck&cp1=1 For most ordinary people, the tax-cut
benefits amount to less than zero.
What the Feds give, state and local governments will take away June
30 issue — Public
libraries have become the new poster children for governmental impecunity. Pick
a town, any town, and the library, that great nexus of egalitarian
self-improvement, is currently in trouble. Oakland, Calif. Swanson, Neb. York,
Maine. Richland, Pa. Closings. Layoffs. Shortened hours. Canceled programs. Matters had gotten so bad in the outposts of borrowed books that the
reference librarian in Franklin, Mass., which a sign identifies as home of the
first public library, asked a reporter, perhaps only half kidding, how much the
sign might fetch on eBay. Yet at a
meeting of the American Library Association, members were shown a letter from
Laura Bush, a former librarian herself, assuring them that her husband’s budget
would include a substantial increase for library funds. What the First Lady
didn’t say was that the increase was yet another aspect of a kind of Washington
legerdemain that can be summed up in a single word: bogus. Bogus is the name of the game, and not just in libraries. The
much-vaunted Bush tax cut is totally bogus, a shell game in which money is
moved from one place to another with political sleight of hand. The bottom line
is that for most ordinary people the benefits amount to less than zero. What
the Feds give, the state and local governments will be taking away, and then
some. Part of that is because of the states’ own foolish
budgetary decisions in recent boom times. (Remember the boom times?) But a large
part is because the federal government has required the states to
provide expensive programs, from Medicaid to Homeland Security, but not
provided anywhere near enough cash to help pay the bills. The linchpin of the president’s education agenda, for instance, which
he developed before terrorists made it possible for his administration to dispense
with domestic policy—and civil liberties—was something with the catchy slogan
“Leave No Child Behind.” It is a program heavy on performance standards that
may as well be called “Leave No Child Untested.” But the states have been picking up
most of the added costs for the new mandates. Thus your state and local taxes are soaring, and your
alleged tax cut merely moved from beneath one government walnut to another.
You’ll get a peek, and then it will disappear. Step right up to the greatest show on earth. See a lady sawed in
half—whoops, it’s the librarian!
The administration says it’s providing more help for libraries, but towns have
to cut library hours to afford police officers, some required by Homeland
Security provisions for which the Feds promised reimbursement, now long
overdue. So the First Lady does
television spots with Elmo the Muppet about the importance of reading, but kids
whose parents can’t afford to buy the newest “Harry Potter” will just have to
lump it because the library can’t afford to buy new books. (end of excerpt) |
