Time is running out for the legislatures in Arizona, California, Indiana, Mississippi and Pennsylvania to solve budget gaps.
Quote:
Reporting from Indianapolis and Denver -- The last time Indiana missed its deadline for passing a budget and had to shut down the government was during the Civil War.
But on Monday, as lawmakers raced to hammer out an agreement over school funding, state agencies began preparing 31,000 workers to be temporarily out of a job. Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels has warned residents that most of the state's services -- including its parks, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and state-regulated casinos -- would be shuttered unless a budget is passed today.
Indiana is one of five states -- along with Arizona, California, Mississippi and Pennsylvania -- bracing for possible shutdowns this week as time runs out for lawmakers to close billion-dollar gaps in their fiscal 2010 budgets.
Of the 46 states whose fiscal year ends today, 32 did not have budgets passed and approved by their governors as of Monday afternoon, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Although the majority of those are expected to pass eleventh-hour budgets, the fiscal futures of a handful remain uncertain, said Todd Haggerty, an NCSL research analyst.
"It's a lot of states that are coming down to the wire," Haggerty said. "It's far more than we've seen in the past, and it's because of the state of the economy."
Since 2002, only five states have been forced to shut down their governments. Some of the closures were brief: In 2007, Michigan's doors were closed for four hours before lawmakers passed emergency measures that bought them time to close a $1.75-billion deficit.
"What's different now is that the recession has eroded tax revenues across the country," Haggerty said. Collectively, he said, states are wrestling with budget deficits totaling $121 billion.
In California, state finance officials will begin issuing IOUs on Thursday if lawmakers and the governor cannot agree on a way to close a $24-billion shortfall. The IOUs would go to local governments, vendors, taxpayers and college students receiving state financial aid. California has issued such IOUs only one other time -- in 1992 -- since the Great Depression.
In Arizona, which has never missed its constitutional budget deadline, officials are battling over how to resolve a $3-billion gap.
Republican lawmakers and the state's GOP governor, Jan Brewer, fought for months over her proposal for a temporary sales tax hike to preserve some government services. In a compromise unveiled Friday, legislators agreed to ask voters to approve the tax in November. But when a key committee was unable to muster a majority Monday for the compromise bill, lawmakers began drafting resolutions that would let the government function for at least a week.
Some services would go dark right away. Over time, the number of agencies still able to operate would shrink.
In Indiana, the budget fight revolves around how to allocate the state's shrinking revenues and how much of its $1.3-billion surplus fund to tap.
Democrats in the state House and Senate are pushing for more spending on schools, particularly in economically troubled and urban areas. GOP legislators, on the other hand, are advocating that extra funds be directed toward charter schools and that scholarship donors to private schools be given a tax credit.
Another key sticking point is whether to help bail out the Marion County Capital Improvement Board, which manages the sports and convention venues in the state's capital. Lawmakers from outside the Indianapolis area are furious over the idea of state money being used to bridge the board's $47-million budget deficit, rather than spent in a way that would benefit more Hoosiers.
By late Monday evening, after months of debate and several budget drafts, legislators left the Statehouse with glimmers of hope that they could avoid a shutdown.
"No matter what, we're going to vote on something" today, said a visibly weary House Speaker B. Patrick Bauer, a Democrat from South Bend. "Will it pass? I don't know."
We have 5 state governments that are about to shutdown. Will the government step in and help them out? Most likely no. I wonder what kind of ripples this will send through the U.S. economy.
i don't think the impact will be a severe as your implying. the governments will hardly "shut down," they will simply have to do away with costly and unnecessary services and stay withing the available budget like they should have done all along.
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Gloss Black Pnuemag, because batteries and boards are for pansies.
When I hold you in my arms
And I feel my finger on your trigger
I know nobody can do me no harm
Because happiness is a warm gun
They couldn't pass a state budget here last year before the deadline. Most state agencies, and business's that depend on their services, like casinos were forced to shut down. After a few days a budget was passed and life went on.
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I'd catapult downtown, To see the galleries
And my favorite fiancee, In a lavender gown
But I'm hooked up to a machine, It performs my daily functions
Through a tube in my wien, And today that thing malfunctioned
Like a forest fire, It burnt a hole in me and I perspired
So there ain't gonna be a wedding, No love affair
No art to which none compares
i don't think the impact will be a severe as your implying. the governments will hardly "shut down," they will simply have to do away with costly and unnecessary services and stay withing the available budget like they should have done all along.
in indiana the state can not spend ANY money untill the budget is passed.
the attorney general of MS said that the courts are going to take every emergency measure possible to ensure 911 services, prisons, etc stay intact if the budget doesnt pass, so I'm not too worried
The rest of the US will be following suit as well. Thanks a liberal/"moderate" next time you see one.
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"Originally posted by §Galactus§if i had a horse, i would put armor on it. and i would wear armor, and ride around collecting taxes and tributes from the serfs."
"Originally posted by §Galactus§You should sig me again. That way, when everyone looks at your signature, they would be like "Holy **** that dude is so awesome he got sigged twice" It would be espically awesome if you sigged this post. So that people who read your sig will be confused as well as amazed
Liberals drive the country into endless debt and raise taxes to pay for useless BS that we neither need nor want, and so called "moderates" either allow them to do it or assist in it (And yes, I'm including Bush in that statement). You have them to thank for the mess we are currently in.
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ROMNEY2012: BETHERE!
Nobody is responsible for your own safety, well being, and security but yourself. Get an education, learn useful skills, be honest, and buy a gun.
Liberals drive the country into endless debt and raise taxes to pay for useless BS that we neither need nor want, and so called "moderates" either allow them to do it or assist in it (And yes, I'm including Bush in that statement). You have them to thank for the mess we are currently in.
Liberals are responsible for everything wrong in the world, they're worse than Nazis and communist combined.
Liberals drive the country into endless debt and raise taxes to pay for useless BS that we neither need nor want, and so called "moderates" either allow them to do it or assist in it (And yes, I'm including Bush in that statement). You have them to thank for the mess we are currently in.
like Reagan...
__________________ Abraham Lincoln- With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
My god why is he allowed to make threads...he has got to be a troll.
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I thought what I'd do was,
I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes.
That way I wouldn't have to have any goddamn
stupid useless conversations with anybody.
I know, all clinton accomplished was a budget surplus. Damn liberals and their spending.
__________________ Abraham Lincoln- With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
You'll ride a black tornado 'cross the western sky
Rope an ol blue norther and milk it till it's dry
Bulldog the Mississippi, pin it's ears down flat
Long before you take this cowboy's hat
right...so those Clinton Tax increases were thanks to Reagen... damn...you got me...
Did Reagan raise people from the dead? Because you're proposing he worked a miracle...
__________________ Abraham Lincoln- With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
how dare you argue with facts Frank...those a strictly forbidden in ST : P
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"Originally posted by §Galactus§if i had a horse, i would put armor on it. and i would wear armor, and ride around collecting taxes and tributes from the serfs."
"Originally posted by §Galactus§You should sig me again. That way, when everyone looks at your signature, they would be like "Holy **** that dude is so awesome he got sigged twice" It would be espically awesome if you sigged this post. So that people who read your sig will be confused as well as amazed
