With Republicans taking over the House of Representatives and many state governorships and state legislatures, the center of crisis will descend upon many of the states of the Union! 🙁
A Census Bureau report demonstrates that the Great Recession caused the loss of 30 percent of the states’ revenues in 2009, due to the high unemployment rate, the dramatic rise in foreclosures of housing, and the tremendous investment losses in the state pension funds.
The result is large budget deficits and increasing social service demands. Unemployment benefits, medicaid, and workers compensation needs became dramatically higher.
The year 2011 will be the worst ever in pressures on states, with the need to have tax increases and service cuts to deal with the largest budget deficits ever seen.
Forty states have reported a combined total of $113 billion in deficits, and the federal stimulus aid that the Obama Administration gave in the past year to avoid the loss of jobs and services in the public sector now is coming to an end. The Republicans show no interest in the suffering that will occur, that will cause many more unemployed people and horrific cuts in services, including education, health care, police and fire protection! 🙁
The only rhetoric we hear is that there must be reduction of federal spending and overcoming the federal budget deficits, as no one is thinking about the human costs that will occur across the country! 🙁
The budget gaps are particularly dramatic in California, New York and Illinois, and it will affect not just the general public in these and other states, but also the issue of state pensions and state worker employment.
So the economic crisis is far from over, and will almost certainly be reaching its peak over the next few years! 🙁