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The States Are Suffering, Because Americans Are Suffering

The Rockefeller Institute, at www.rockinst.org, is dedicated to the study of public finance, usually at the state and local level.  They have operated not in obscurity, but certainly out of what you would think of as the limelight.  For the last year, things have been different.  They get a ton of attention, and rightfully so.  They are counting in real-time the cost of this meltdown as measured in the flow of revenues to city and state governments.  The numbers are sobering.  In the 2nd quarter of ‘09, income tax collection down 27.5%, sales tax down 9.5%.  This at a time when we are demanding more services of those exact entities through medicaid payments and other social outreach programs.

There can be no escaping either the cause or the effect.  We are nationally making do with less.  The US government has stepped in not only to fund but also to spend, hoping that it can bridge the gap until our private sector picks up enough to take over.  That won’t happen anytime soon.