Democrats, Republicans plan deep cuts in US state budgets

[Hannah Bell]

Governors in states throughout the US have begun to unveil budget proposals that include devastating cuts in basic social services, education, health care, and pay and benefits for government workers.

US state governments face a collected deficit of about $140 billion this coming fiscal year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. This does not include the disastrous budget situation confronting cities and localities throughout the country. Total state revenues fell by half a trillion dollars from 2008 to 2009, contributing to the budget crises.

Nicholas Johnson of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities remarked to the Washington Post that the coming year “will actually be the most difficult budget year for states ever.” The combined budget deficit is somewhat smaller than last year’s, but the states will be deprived of even the very limited federal aid to the states included in an earlier stimulus package.

Amidst various plans put forward by Democratic and Republican governors alike, the one proposal that has been completely excluded is the option of increasing taxes on the wealthy. The state budget cuts, which will have disastrous consequences for millions of people, are being implemented even as corporations sit on record profits and the pay of Wall Street and corporate executives returns to its pre-2008 highs....

Democratic Governor of California Jerry Brown set the tone in remarks on Monday...“These cuts will be painful, requiring sacrifice from every sector of the state, but we have no choice.”

California, the largest state by population, is also home to six of the country’s wealthiest 10 zip codes and 19 of the wealthiest 400 individuals. A wealth tax of 10 percent on these 19 people, who have a combined net worth of $136.2 billion, would raise more money than the value of all the cuts in Brown’s budget for the next 18 months.



The combined budget deficit of all the states is equivalent to about 15 percent of the annual spending on the US military. It is less than a fifth of the amount handed out to Wall Street as part of the first bank bail out in 2008 (the $700 billion TARP program) and a small fraction of the amount made available over the past two years by the Obama administration.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/jan2011/stat-j11.shtml

[midnight]

1. This country cannot afford to pay for the entitlement of the rich by the rich...

[Rex]

2. Wow.

The uber-rich are some amazingly greedy bastards...guess that is how one gets filthy rich.

[leftstreet]

3. You'd think the rich would be afraid the serfs might become violent

Has the Global Ruling Class ever been this smug and confident?

[Skittles]

4. gotta keep those wars on