(Via Timebomb 2000)
It certainly seems so.
“The February school payment we can’t make, February payroll there’s no money there,” said State Treasurer, Dean Martin.
Martin said unless the capitol buildings are sold before the end of the month, there will be no more money meaning, “If they continue to issue checks without having money from the sale of the buildings, I have to bounce them.”
Arizona isn’t the only state in trouble. We’ve all heard California’s tales of woe, but the problem doesn’t stop there. Washington has a $2.6 billion hole, New Jersey is looking for $9.6 billion, New York needs to find $7 billion–the list goes on and depressingly on. State governments across the country are feeling the pinch of unfunded federal mandates, the pain of decreased tax revenues and suffering the results of years of out of control spending.
Hit Google News and search for “sales tax receipts“–almost without exception, the stories are about sales tax collections going down right when states can’t afford for it to happen. Oil prices are trending up, and that won’t help out the state budgets. More and more people are unemployed, and many states are having to “borrow” the money to pay the unemployment checks from the Feds.
On a national level, the stimulus apparently wasn’t stimulating enough, and the Amateur in Chief wants another one. Great…we got into this by spending money we didn’t really have, we made it worse by spending more money we didn’t have…the third time’s bound to be the charm!
“Shotguns and canned goods” was good advice last week, and I still think it’s good advice this week. Along with solar panels, medical supplies, tools, clothes, linens, toilet paper….