The General Assembly is playing chicken, hopelessly lost in a fantasy world where the (roughly) 20% revenue shortfall will not only disappear quickly, but will pour in in bucket loads. Alas, it will not be so. It may be a decade or more before current revenue (without, of course, major tax increases across the board) is again equal to 2007 revenue. Meanwhile they borrow and back-fill, unable to muster the courage to cut benefits to elderly widows, nor able to tell their middle class constituents that they too will have to pay more for grandma’s social services.
The rub is this, at some point it will all be taken out of their hands. The treasury will be too low on cash to make transfer payments to the towns, who will scream murder when they can not pay their teachers, and firemen. The state will miss its own payroll. Public schools will be forced, as they are currently in Hawaii, onto a four day week. Furlough Fridays will be fine with the kids. But the unions will shriek.
And by then, there will be little anyone can do about any of it.
The General Assembly is playing chicken, hopelessly lost in a fantasy world where the (roughly) 20% revenue shortfall will not only disappear quickly, but will pour in in bucket loads. Alas, it will not be so. It may be a decade or more before current revenue (without, of course, major tax increases across the board) is again equal to 2007 revenue. Meanwhile they borrow and back-fill, unable to muster the courage to cut benefits to elderly widows, nor able to tell their middle class constituents that they too will have to pay more for grandma’s social services.
The rub is this, at some point it will all be taken out of their hands. The treasury will be too low on cash to make transfer payments to the towns, who will scream murder when they can not pay their teachers, and firemen. The state will miss its own payroll. Public schools will be forced, as they are currently in Hawaii, onto a four day week. Furlough Fridays will be fine with the kids. But the unions will shriek.
And by then, there will be little anyone can do about any of it.