Gov. Mitch Daniels: States must tighten their belts even more

Source: Christian Science Monitor

By Dave Cook Staff writer / February 23, 2010

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who ran the US government’s budget office for George W. Bush, expects that the 50 states will need to permanently tighten their belts and do less for their citizens.

Because of the economic contraction, the Republican governor foresees “a long-term contraction in the scope of what states are doing,” he said at a Monitor-sponsored breakfast for reporters on Tuesday.
New report on state revenues

The recession without doubt has left states in financial trouble, as tax collections have fallen. (The Monitor writes about states facing the severest problems here.) State tax revenues declined 4.1 percent nationwide during the final three months of 2009, according to a new report by the Rockefeller Institute of Government.

Five straight quarters of year-over-year decline set a record, the Institute said, with both income-tax and sales-tax revenue falling during the entire five-quarter period.

Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/monitor_breakfast/2010/0223/Gov.-Mitch-Daniels-States-must-tighten-their-belts-even-more

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If the US States have to do less for their citizens for years to come, start with corporate subsidies. Otherwise they should tell their citizens this in the face: You're on your own, get used to it. Oh wait, they're politically indebted to their campaign contributors! That will never happen!

That's what elections are all about, regardless of anyone's ideology.

thanks for fucking over the American people when you were in the Bush admin. Mitch, or, as we called him around here, "Bush bitch Mitch."

nice to see the trainwreck continues whenever republicans and neoliberals get to decide economic policy.

It is getting to be time for a revolution.

this is what happens when the IMF and World Bank want a country to fail and fall into private hands.

The party for America is over, and the citizens lost. They might want to think things will get better, but how? By borrowing more from China?

Countries starting to fail in Europe. California (the 7th largest economy in world) in deep trouble. First one State bankruptcy and then another and the next thing you know, the whole USA is bankrupt. If the IMF shows up, will they demand we turn over water rights? Establish toll roads? Raise taxes? Will they turn over food production to the likes of Monsanto?

You know it won't be pretty. (The Shock Doctrine was a great book).