One wonders if Jay Nixon will get the same coverage Matt Blunt did for making hard choices with the budget.

While Blunt ‘balanced the budget on the backs of the poor’ Nixon will be called a ’statesman’ making the ‘tough decisions’

Which for it…

States lining up for a bailout … what a crock. Federal revenue will be dropping too. So I guess the states think they should just keep on spending, and put it on OUR credit card.

In reality, states must spend more during bad times - higher unemployment claims, more social service spending. This means they should be saving money in a “rainy day fund” during the boom years. Instead, they spend every dime that comes in the door, praise themselves for “balancing the budget” and then demand that we go into debt during the bad times. And this is what passes for fiscal responsibility.

I think Missouri should continue to do nothing like it traditionally has. That way it can continue to lead the nation in job losses and escalating crime figures. The legislature in Missouri is safe and secure living the “high life” off the taxpayers and have all the retirement and healtcare benefits they need to last them a lifetime so they don’t need the hassle of worrying about what the “little people” need.

I think this is essentially to be expected when you tack the budget to income–as the job market goes, so goes the state budget.

It’s also a wake up call about the size of state governments. We’ve become interdependent on everything the state has decided to reapportion to us, some reasonable services, some not. All state governments have been just about at the bursting point, inefficient and slothful in responding to changes in the economy. It may be painful, but some sort of change is in order. It’s only fair that government cut back as the families it exists to serve do.

Imagine that!! Government doesn’t know how to balance a checkbook. If a business or household budgeted the way government does, they would be bankrupt in a few short years.

Government budgets don’t need a scalpel to do the trimming, the need a freaking Stihl chainsaw.