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Published: 03/8/11

Tom Corbett Budget: 5 Painful Cuts in Pennsylvania

By  Mary Phillips-Sandy - AOL News
Tom Corbett Budget: 5 Painful Cuts in Pennsylvania

Next in line for a leaner, meaner budget: Pennsylvania. Republican Gov. Tom Corbett just unveiled his 2011-12 budget proposal for the commonwealth, and sure enough, the $27.3 billion plan contains a number of steep cuts. For the past two years, Pennsylvania has benefited from a $2.6 billion federal stimulus package; that money runs out in June, and the commonwealth is grappling with a $4 billion deficit. The proposed budget "resets Pennsylvania's fiscal clock to 2008-2009 levels," The Morning Call reports. And while it's largely in keeping with current conservative thinking about state ...

Published: 03/1/11

Scott Walker's Budget Address: Light on Detail, but Plenty to Provoke Twitter

By  Mary Phillips-Sandy - AOL News
Scott Walker's Budget Address: Light on Detail, but Plenty to Provoke Twitter

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker just concluded a speech outlining his two-year budget plan. His remarks were light on specifics and contained few surprises. As expected, Walker called for deep cuts in education and local government funding, plus a $500 million cut in Medicaid spending. He also proposed a cap on property tax rates and the elimination of capital gains tax on investments in Wisconsin-based businesses. As for the ongoing protests in and around the statehouse, Walker sounded unconcerned. "I'm an optimist," he said. "I believe that after our budget repair bill passes, tempers will ...

Published: 03/1/11

Gov. Scott Walker's Budget Speech of Doom: What to Expect From the Wisconsin Address

By  Mary Phillips-Sandy - AOL News
Gov. Scott Walker's Budget Speech of Doom: What to Expect From the Wisconsin Address

As protesters continue to criticize his proposal to eliminate most collective bargaining rights for public workers, Gov. Scott Walker this afternoon will reveal his full budget plan for Wisconsin. (Watch it live here.) He's said his goal is to help close a $3.6 billion deficit, and it's likely we'll hear about more controversial cuts during his speech. WISC-Madison reports that education funding will take a huge hit: Capitol watchers said that statewide school aid will likely see a cut of at least $900 million, which amounts to a loss of nearly $500 per pupil in the biennial budget's ...

Published: 03/1/11

Wisconsin Protests: Far From the Madison Crowd

By  Robert and Donna Trussell - Politics Daily
Wisconsin Protests: Far From the Madison Crowd

Follow the Trussell cartoons on Twitter at ChaosTheoryPD ...

Published: 02/22/11

Majority Opposes Limits on Collective Bargaining Power, Poll Finds

By  Christopher Weber - Politics Daily
Majority Opposes Limits on Collective Bargaining Power, Poll Finds

Most Americans say they are against any laws reducing the collective bargaining power of unionized civil service workers as a way to balance a state's budget, according to a new survey out Tuesday. The USA Today/Gallup poll comes as there's no end in sight to the week-long budget showdown between Wisconsin's public employee unions and Gov. Scott Walker. Pollsters found that 61 percent of respondents would oppose a law in their state similar to the one being floated by Walker that would reduce the ability of Wisconsin's state employee unions to bargain. Just 33 percent said they would support ...

Published: 02/22/11

New Jersey Budget: 5 Key Cuts Proposed by Gov. Christie

By  Mary Phillips-Sandy - AOL News
New Jersey Budget: 5 Key Cuts Proposed by Gov. Christie

New Jersey is but the latest state in the nation to face the music. Today Gov. Chris Christie unveiled his budget for the year ending June 30, 2012. Touting the state's efforts to close a projected $11 billion deficit, Christie declared a "new normal" in New Jersey: We will no longer blindly fund commitments that prior legislators and governors have made ... regardless of whether they were wise, and regardless of whether they yielded programs that even work. This year's budget ... is not a budget that funds each and every program at the same level as last year. Instead, we've done ...

Published: 02/17/11

States Shift to Deep Cuts for Workers to Balance Budgets

By  Andrea Stone - AOL News
States Shift to Deep Cuts for Workers to Balance Budgets

Dire. Drastic. Draconian. Call them what you will, but the measures being called for in state capitals to deal with record budget shortfalls are harsher than any in memory and have sparked angry protests from public employees most likely to feel the brunt of them. In Madison, Wis., police were dispatched today when every Democrat in the state Senate failed to show up for a vote on a bill to strip public workers of collective bargaining rights. Thousands of teachers and other state workers have rallied in and around the Capitol, some holding signs comparing the new governor, Republican Scott ...

Published: 02/7/11

Florida Budget Cuts: Gov. Rick Scott's 5 Most Dramatic Proposals

By  Mary Phillips-Sandy - AOL News
Florida Budget Cuts: Gov. Rick Scott's 5 Most Dramatic Proposals

Earlier this month, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a series of drastic budget cuts in an attempt to close a $10 billion shortfall. Now it's Florida's turn. Newly elected Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican backed by the tea party, has released his first budget proposal for the state. Under Scott's plan, Florida's spending would shrink by $4.6 billion -- and some say the cuts are going too far. Here are some of the biggest reductions in Gov. Scott's proposal. 1. A 10 percent cut in education spending Scott is calling for a $703 million cut in school funding. State Sen. Eleanor Sobel told ...

Published: 01/13/11

Mess in Illinois Only the Beginning of States' Budget Woes

By  Joseph Schuman - AOL News
Mess in Illinois Only the Beginning of States' Budget Woes

When Illinois legislators voted this week to raise state income taxes by 66 percent, they weren't sending a signal of tax-and-spend. It was tax-and-survive. The millions of job losses, real-estate market implosion and relentless economic malaise wrought by the 2008-09 recession left Illinois' and other states' treasuries barren and their budgets deep in the red. Budget shortfalls are expected to be bad again this year and next, leaving state governments around the country with no choice but to painfully cut social services, education funds and other spending, or raise taxes, or in most cases ...

Published: 12/23/10

A 'New Realism' About Bipartisanship May Be Key to States' Fiscal Rebound

By  Lou Cannon - Politics Daily
A 'New Realism' About Bipartisanship May Be Key to States' Fiscal Rebound

Holiday cheer is in short supply this year in the nation's state capitols. Although revenues are gradually returning to pre-recession levels, there are dismal expectations of new budget gaps in the 2012 fiscal year as federal stimulus funds disappear and program costs soar. Worse yet, the short-term struggles of states to balance budgets while maintaining adequate services conceal deeper structural problems. Recently, in an alarmist page-one story, the New York Times worried that states will be overwhelmed by mountains of accumulated debt and quoted financier Felix Rohatyn as saying that ...

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