"Firefighters have protested cuts in Florida," as have nurses in Minnesota, which cut aid to health services, as has Alabama (Time, June 28, p.22). That article adds that Arizona cut kindergarten programs to half-days (a hard situation for working parents) and that funds for schools "plunged" in New Jersey, while Florida "slashed" university spending.
"More than one-third of the trains, equipment, and facilities of the nation's seven largest rail transit agencies are near the end of their useful life or past that point" (USA Today, May 1, 2009, p.3).
The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 4, 2009, p.1: California, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Colorado have "shuttered" most state offices one day per week; Detroit cut family services for foster kids; 7,000 state jobs were eliminated in Washington; 27,000 teachers were laid off in California; Maine families "cannot apply for food stamps or Medicaid"; Maryland has halved "the usual number of traffic patrols"; Georgia has 25,000 employees "facing furloughs"; lawyers there have trouble finding government personnel with whom to file papers at the State Court of Appeals. Five million Americans work for state governments; many of their jobs are no longer secure.
Public safety is directly threatened. "Budget cuts are forcing police around the country to stop responding to fraud, burglary and theft calls as officers focus limited resources on violent crime. ... 'If you come home to find your house burglarized and you call, we're not coming,' said an Oakland police spokeswoman" (USA Today, Aug. 25, p.1).
"There are more people in poverty now 43.6 million than at any time since the government began keeping accurate records (The New York Times, Sept. 25, p.A21). "Public employee layoffs and service cutbacks that states are enacting amount to an 'anti-stimulus program' that dwarfs the size of the federal government's stimulus program" (The Week, July 16, p.4).
Pity the poor public official who tries to actually do something. "Daniel Varela Sr., mayor of Livingston, Calif., was booted from office last month in a landslide recall election. His crime? He had the temerity to push through the small city's first water-rate increase in more than a decade to try to fix its aging water system, which had spewed brownish, smelly water from rusty pipes" (The New York Times, Sept. 23, p.A1).
The unemployed, the part-timers who'd rather be full-time, and the many 18- to 24-year-olds living with parents total roughly 20 million able-bodied Americans. (The Week, Aug. 20, p.4).
I could fill five times this space with similar quotes. Piles of printouts surround me as I write. My files bulge with this stuff.
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