At this post Steven Benen is decrying the fact that $40 billion in state aid was cut out of the stimulus so states had to lay people off. In this article there is criticism of the states for using stimulus money to just keep the status quo.
So which is it? Was the stimulus just to keep bureaucrats employed at the cost of the U.S. taxpayer or to actually do something different? Here in AL the legislature used the stimulus money to just balance the budget. That will work out well next year.
The problem the states are facing is due to the collapse in the economy there has been a massive decline in tax revenue of all kinds. The state and local governments were pretty fat and now they have to trim down. That means people are losing their jobs. Maybe when the economy recovers and Americans get private jobs they can go back to subsidizing the government.
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