We tend to focus on federal matters but for most people the face of government is to be found in the local agencies providing basic services such as police protection, ambulance services, welfare, and medical care for the poor. This is where the erosion of public services is being felt.
The Huffington Post | Alexander Eichler | Posted 05.16.2012
Student debt weighing on your mind? You might be surprised about where the worst of it comes from. A recent Reuters analysis of student debt at var...
The Huffington Post | Jillian Berman | Posted 04.19.2012
Snow days are so passé. Now it's all about budget cut days. Yes, faced with budget woes, the Burnsville School district is considering giving its ...
AP | DAVID MERCER | Posted 04.12.2012
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Most states are doing a poor job tracking whether their tax breaks for businesses are actually spurring job growth, including some ...
Ellen Brown | Posted 05.26.2012
Banks and borrowers were supposed to be paying equal rates: the fat years would balance out the lean. But the Fed artificially manipulated the rates to the save the banks.
AP | MARTIGA LOHN and AMY FORLITI | Posted 09.14.2011
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The abrupt agreement on a budget deal to end Minnesota's government shutdown, in which Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton dropped his...
Jared Bernstein | Posted 09.05.2011
The stock market crash that precipitated the early 2000s downturn was particularly tough on high-end wealth relative to the housing bust of the Great Recession. In the latter case, you hit a lot more people in the middle class, and it weighs dramatically on local revenues.
Denver Post | Tim Hoover | Posted 08.20.2011
The state of Colorado will end the 2010-11 budget year more than $300 million in the black, triggering the release of nearly $70 million to help offse...
The Wall Street Journal | Kate Linebaugh | Posted 08.08.2011
Around the country public officials are asking themselves similar questions. Plunging property-tax receipts and rising pension and health-care costs h...
Posted 08.07.2011
BIRMINGHAM - Alabama's troubled Jefferson County is to put one-third of its workers on administrative leave without pay from Monday because of a s...
Amy B. Dean | Posted 06.07.2011
We must act differently, earning lasting support from the public by showing, in concrete and local fashion, how much the labor movement serves the public good.
The Huffington Post | William Alden | Posted 05.25.2011
Even as widening state budget deficits are becoming a potential stumbling block for economic recovery, Federal assistance seems unlikely. With Washin...
Amy B. Dean | Posted 05.25.2011
While political leaders try to find scapegoats to deflect blame for our problems, the American people are ultimately smarter than that. They want and are responsive to compelling solutions to unemployment and economic insecurity.
Ellen Brown | Posted 05.25.2011
Responding to an unfilled need for credit, three states in the last month -- Oregon, Washington and Maryland -- have introduced bills for state-owned banks.
Mark Muro | Posted 05.25.2011
States need to make the sound policy decisions necessary to putting their fiscal house back in order, or prolong over many years a world of hurt.
The Huffington Post | Lila Shapiro | Posted 05.25.2011
On Monday night, the Illinois state governor's office confirmed that the Securities and Exchange Commission has launched an investigation into public ...
Ellen Brown | Posted 05.25.2011
Bills have been introduced in both the House and Senate of the Washington State Legislature that add Washington to the growing number of states actively moving to create public banking facilities.
Posted 05.25.2011
New York has the solution to the deficit problem: EBAY. The Daily News reported that the government made "$1.3 million last year by selling its unwan...
AP | JUDY LIN and SHANNON McCAFFREY | Posted 05.25.2011
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — If 2011 is hinting at a national recovery, there is little sign of it in statehouses across the country. States that alrea...
Ellen Brown | Posted 05.25.2011
The credit crisis plunged state and local governments into insolvency, but the Fed has said there will be no "quantitative easing" for municipal governments. Why not?
Clarissa Martinez De Castro | Posted 05.25.2011
As debate continues over SB 1070, the Arizona law that would essentially codify racial profiling as accepted police practice, no group is paying close...
bloomberg.com | Edward Robinson | Posted 05.25.2011
Even as the U.S. appears to be on the mend -- gross domestic product has climbed three straight quarters -- finances in Arizona, Illinois, New Jersey,...
Bill Scher | Posted 05.25.2011
conservatives are broadening their arguments in hopes of using today's vote to drive a wedge between the public and our public servants. And, as usual, they are relying on made up numbers and misleading rhetoric to make their flimsy case.
nytimes.com | MONICA DAVEY | Posted 05.25.2011
BEATRICE, Neb. -- Around the nation, cities and towns facing grim budget circumstances are grasping at unlikely -- some would say desperate -- means t...
Ellen Brown | Posted 05.25.2011
California is in the anomalous position of being $26 billion in the red and plunging toward bankruptcy, while it has over $70 billion stashed away in an investment pool that it cannot touch.
Jerry Jasinowski | Posted 05.29.2012