"The fiscal crisis for states will persist long after the economy rebounds as they confront rising health care costs, underfunded pensions, ignored infrastructure needs, eroding revenues and expected federal budget cuts, according to a report issued here Tuesday by a task force of respected budget experts..."'The ability of the states to meet their obligations to public employees, to creditors and most critically to the education and well-being of their citizens is threatened,' warned the chairmen of the task force, Richard Ravitch, a former lieutenant governor of New York, and Paul A. Volcker, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve. ....
"Washington's focus on deficit reduction -- with big budget cuts scheduled for after the fall election -- has made cuts to state aid inevitable, many governors believe.
"If federal grants to the states were cut by just 10 percent, the report said, the loss to state and local government budgets would be more than $60 billion a year -- nearly twice the size of the combined tax increases that states enacted during the fiscal crisis from 2008 to 2011...States have not set aside enough money to cover the health and retirement benefits they owe their workers." ("Gloomy Forecast for States, Even if Economy Rebounds," New York Times)
Doesn't this whole thing sound like a plot that's been worked out by the greedy MFs who run the system?
I mean, this is just like Europe, isn't it; where all the losses from the financial crisis have been shrugged-off onto working people who are now expected to give up the meager programs that make it possible to get the drugs they need to stay alive or to nab a few bags of groceries to keep them from dying on the streets?
Be realistic. Obama's not going to get us out of this mess. That's a pipe dream. If we don't get it together and figure out a way to fight back, we're going to be up the creek for the next 100 years or so.
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