(The Sacramento Bee) California’s state budget crisis is so severe that the Pew Center on the States, a Washington-based policy think tank, is using it as an example of conditions that imperil other states.
Nine other states, the Pew report says, are facing “some of the same pressures that have pushed California toward economic disaster,” adding that they also could see furloughs of public employees, severe cuts in education and reductions in the social welfare safety net.
“A challenging mix of economic, political and money-management factors have pushed California to the brink of insolvency. But while California often takes the spotlight, other states are facing hardships just as daunting,” Susan Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States, said in a statement accompanying the report. “Decisions these states make as they try to navigate the recession will play a role in how quickly the entire nation recovers.”
The report was issued just two days after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger acknowledged that the state’s current budget, enacted last July, is as much as $7 billion in the red already. He is expected to propose ways to close that gap and deal with the projected deficit in the 2010-11 budget no later than Jan. 10.
The other nine states threatened with California-style fiscal crisis, the Pew report said, are Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin. With California, they represent one-third of the nation’s population and economic output.
