After taking a longer than expected medically-induced hiatus from this platform, the truly terrible DC leadership vacuum circumstances compel me to address the state and local government fiscal crisis as once again the Senate leaves town without doing anything to address either the raging pandemic itself, or its economic and social consequences.
Richard Ravitch once again nails the macro-economic consequences of continuing to ignore the federal obligation to cover state and local tax and fee revenue shortfalls with terrible beauty in a NYTimes Op-Ed published in today's print edition "23 Million Reasons to Not Let States Fail". That title telegraphs that this time, Ravitch is emphasizing the sheer size of the state and local workforce on which we - ALL of us in both red and blue states and localities - depend for our essential services.
The state and local government economy employs 23 million front-line blue and white collar workers and is responsible for $3+ Trillion of our nation's Gross Domestic Product. There are those among my friends who now opine that the Senate now wants to ensure that the Biden administration will have to preside over at least as anemic a recovery from the Greater Recession of 2020 as that bequeathed to the Obama administration in the wake of the Great Recession of 2008. Could the Senate leadership possibly be THAT cynical????
Dr. Lucy Dadayan of the Urban Institute has come out with her latest Monthly State Revenue Highlights piece but I can't even share the latest ugly map o' fiscal stress with you as UI management has decided to put this useful reporting beyond easy reach with an expensive pay- wall. But I can tell you that her map shows that the most severe fiscal stress (as measured by greater than 10% YOY downward change in state revenues) is no longer concentrated in the Northeast-Midwest region but has migrated with the pandemic to politically red-states including Florida, Texas and Alaska, as well the two reliably blue states of Oregon and Hawaii. And those states in the next most negative category (-10% to -4%) now include the politically red states of Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and North Dakota.
The ground level consequences of all of this deliberately un-relieved fiscal stress is epitomized for me in another NYTimes piece, this time a news story by Christina Goldbaum on the plight of the NYS Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) "Subway Service Could Be Cut 40% if No Federal Aid Arrives". (Just a wild guess: it's probably no coincidence that the Ravitch Op-Ed appears the same day as this MTA story, given that one of Ravitch's many past public sector leadership positions was as Chair of the MTA Board.)
So after a strong bi-partisan start with the CARES Act's swift passage, the Congress has regressed back into it's deplorables hyper-partisan grid-lock despite the best efforts of Senators like Menendez, Cassidy and Representatives like Sherrill and King with their carefully crafted bi-partisan co-sponsorship coalitions for of the SMART Act ,which continues to languish in committees in both houses.
Don't even get me started on the Executive Branch! I'd prefer not to have a third ER visit, especially not as my great local hospital gears further up for the COVID surge they are experiencing.
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