Life in "Progress" State

It's hard to kick a state when their down. But in honor of the impending Ohio State beat down of the wolverines up north, what the heck........

Mitchell Bean, director of the nonpartisan Michigan House Fiscal Agency, said Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) already has warned state agencies to prepare for 20 percent cuts next year.

“I have a feeling that it’s going to look pretty gruesome,” he said. Michigan already is running on a budget shrunken to 1969 levels, in inflation-adjusted terms, Bean said.

Across-the-board cuts won’t save enough, Bean said, so lawmakers must choose programs to eliminate.

Both California and Michigan were prominently featured in a new report issued this week by the Pew Center on the States, “Beyond California: States in Fiscal Peril.” The report examined nine states that share some of the same economic and fiscal pressures that pushed California to the brink of insolvency this year, when it ran out of cash and had to issue IOUs for a time. The other states are: Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.

Hey when your population equates to 1969 levels why spend at more than that.

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Thanks reader Becky.