Governors Ask Washington to Avoid Causing Any More Pain.

Their states on the brink of financial catastrophe, governors pleaded Saturday for the divided federal government to avoid doing anything that would hamper the tenuous economic recovery back home.

Their message to Washington: prevent a government shutdown, abstain from spending cuts that dramatically will affect states and end even preliminary discussions about allowing states to declare bankruptcy.

"Anything that Congress does that will undermine our recovery is quite troublesome to us," said Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, head of the National Governors Association, as she opened the bipartisan group's winter meeting. "We're asking for cooperation."

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/02/26/business/AP-US-Governors-Economy.html?ref=aponline

:banghead:

'Gregoire and the NGA's vice chairman, Gov. Dave Heineman, R-Neb., recently met with House and Senate leaders as well as Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and asked them to be mindful of how the loss of the money, as well as further spending cuts, could hurt states.

The warnings come just as the Commerce Department reported that state and local responses to the fiscal crisis were undercutting the national recovery, slowing economic growth. Governors said the report only proved their point.

"For two years, governors have said when we cut we impact the recovery," said Gregoire. "We know we have to make the cuts, but we can ill afford to have Congress on top of that cutting us more because the result will slow the recovery in our home states and in the nation."'

:sarcasm:

These people never seem to learn...........