Federal Budget
Stimulus to Ease, Not Fix, State Budget Woes
Exactly how much each state will get from the $787 billion economic package that President Obama is expected to sign shortly will vary, but the infusion of federal dollars still won’t plug the gaping holes in many state budgets. By some estimates, the deal, once President Obama signs it, could mean $26 billion for California, […]
Delegates Speak: California on Federal Funding
Wed. Aug. 28, 2008, 9:00 a.m. EDT Q. What serious issue in your state would you like the next president to address? During the last eight years, we’ve seen the federal government abandon states like California with huge urban populations. When you look at the rate of return of tax dollars generated in California, it’s […]
Governors Rip Feds in Annual Policy Speeches
Critical governors The following governors criticized the federal government during “state of the state” speeches given this year: Janet Napolitano (D-Ariz.) Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.) Bill Ritter (D-Colo.) M. Jodi Rell (R-Conn.) John Baldacci (D-Maine) Jennifer Granholm (D-Mich.) Haley Barbour (R-Miss.) Matt Blunt (R-Mo.) Dave Heineman (R-Neb.) Eliot Spitzer (D-N.Y.) Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) Mike Rounds […]
Congress Tackles States’ Agenda
As lawmakers on Capitol Hill shift their focus from the Iraq war and turn to domestic issues, states are sending a simple message: more money and less interference. Measures pending before Congress that are important to states vary widely, but several would have a profound impact on the daily lives of Americans, if approved, ranging […]
States Feel the Pinch of Tight Bush Budget
States would be spared draconian cuts next year under President Bush’s plan to balance the federal budget by 2012, but health, social and other programs important to states still would be squeezed. Only defense and homeland security saw substantial boosts in Bush’s war-time budget proposal, the first he has presented to a Democratic-controlled Congress. His […]
Child-Support Enforcement Takes Hit
Deep slashes in the federal child-support enforcement program-included in Congress’ most recent budget cuts – have left states searching for ways to avoid scaling back what has been hailed as the government’s most successful social-services program. The changes, effective October 2007, reduce the federal government’s share of costs in states’ increasingly successful efforts to collect […]
Report: 9 states May Lose Under Bush Plan
Nine states would receive less money from Washington, D.C., if Congress adopts President Bush’s 2007 budget proposal, while most others would see modest increases in federal funding, a new analysis suggests. Click the image above for a state-by-state breakdown of federal funding to states. (Expand new window fully) A preliminary state-by-state review of the administration’s new […]
Federal Red Ink Shrinks Money for States
President Bush is offering states no help in paying for congressionally ordered changes to driver’s licenses and would foist new costs on states to provide food for low-income pregnant women while slashing money to revitalize poor neighborhoods. One day after Bush released his .77 trillion proposed 2007 budget , analysts scouring the document concluded […]
Bush Budget Short on State Aid
With the federal government swimming in a sea of red ink, states can be grateful that their own financial pictures have gotten rosier because there is little extra money to trickle down from Washington, D.C. President Bush on Monday (Feb. 6) unveiled a $2.77 trillion budget proposal for the 2007 fiscal year that squeezes […]
Richer States Get Less From Uncle Sam
The federal tax burden falls most heavily on affluent Connecticut, while the state of New Mexico, home of the White Sands Missile Range, the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the highest poverty rate in the nation, gets the most federal dollars back, studies of the federal budget’s impact on states show. Although New Mexico saw […]