- As state budgets, payrolls shrink, so do ambitions, By John Gramlich, January 10, 2011, Stateline.org: “Four years ago, Washington Governor Chris Gregoire beamed as she presented her new state budget to the public. It was a good-times spending plan that took billions of dollars in tax revenue drawn from a bustling high-tech economy and poured it into education, health care and social services. ‘I love my budget,’ she said, calling it a roadmap ‘to change the status quo.’ These days, Gregoire would love to return to the status quo of old. Last month, she proposed another two-year budget that is notable not for the investments it makes, but for the spending cuts it requires, many of which reverse her priorities of just a few years ago. Gone are subsidized health insurance for 66,000 working poor and 27,000 children; funding for early childhood education; the state tourism office; and even Washington’s 2012 presidential primary election, which she intends to cancel in favor of party caucuses to save $10 million. If approved, the budget would be the first one in Washington State since the Great Depression to decrease overall state spending from one biennium to the next…”
- States adjust to a more frugal Washington, By Pamela M. Prah, January 11, 2011, Stateline.org: “As a new power dynamic takes hold in Washington, one thing is clear for cash-strapped states: Whether they think of federal aid money as an essential economic boost or a wasteful bailout, the help is over. For states that have leaned heavily on federal stimulus dollars to balance their budgets during their worst fiscal crisis in generations, Washington’s more austere attitude will come as a big change. But the really interesting question for 2011 is whether the state-federal relationship may change in more fundamental ways than Congress simply turning off the spigot of emergency budget aid…”
- Republicans face obstacles in redistricting, By Daniel C. Vock, January 12, 2011, Stateline.org: “If there is any state where the power to draw political district lines is well understood, surely it must be Texas. It was in Texas, after all, where Democratic state legislators fled the Capitol and later the state in 2003 to stall a controversial Republican redistricting plan. The Democrats ultimately relented and the Republicans passed their unusual ‘mid-decade’ map. Partly as a result, the GOP gained six congressional seats in the next election…”
- State budget outlook: the worst isn’t over, By Josh Goodman, January 13, 2011, Stateline.org: “Last year, to the surprise of many people in Maryland, the state ended the fiscal year with a $344 million surplus. State revenues, beaten down by the recession, had begun to increase again – and they’ve continued to rise ever since. After three revenue-draining years, it seems, the long-awaited economic recovery has begun. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the uptick won’t be anywhere near enough to save Maryland from what will likely be the worst year yet of its current budget crisis. Even with the recent revenue growth, Maryland faces a budget shortfall for the coming fiscal year of somewhere between $1.3 billion and $1.6 billion. As a result, this year may be the first time in the current economic downturn that Maryland cuts K-12 education spending to a lower amount than it was the year before. Also for the first time, major layoffs of state workers may be coming…”
- Health care budgets in critical condition, By Christine Vestal, January 14, 2011, Stateline.org: “Ever since Congress passed a sweeping health care reform law last year, states have been split into two groups moving essentially in opposite directions. Going one way are states like California, where leaders from both parties have embraced the federal law and even accelerated plans to implement it. Democrats in the Legislature last summer wasted no time writing a bill to create a health insurance exchange – a key element of the national framework – and Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was then governor, signed it. California also sought and won a special waiver from the federal government to allow low-income adults now covered by state-funded health care programs to move into federally funded Medicaid plans prior to the 2014 effective date. Going the other way are states like Arizona, where leaders wish the federal health care law would go away. First, Republican Governor Jan Brewer joined one of several legal battles aimed at overturning the federal law. Then, Brewer supported a successful ballot measure that rejects one of the core principles of the law, the so-called ‘individual mandate’ requiring every American to buy health insurance. Now, with a gaping hole in her upcoming budget, Brewer is asking Washington for permission to scale back Arizona’s existing Medicaid program until health care reform takes effect in 2014…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty