State budgets paint bleak economic picture
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- September
- 9
  New York is one of 13 states facing new, mid-year budget shortfalls that total $4.4 billion, according to a new report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The others are Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia.
  Twenty-nine states, including New York, previously had to cut spending, use reserves or raise revenues to balance their 2008-09 budgets. They faced combined shortfalls of about $48 billion at the time.
  The shortfall amounts and number of states affected are likely to grow in coming months if state revenues continue to be anemic, the report said. The bursting of the housing bubble and the related slump in sales of products like appliances and furniture have hurt state sales tax revenues, as has slower consumption of other products. Job losses are reducing income-tax revenues for states, the study said.
  The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said the new budget gaps illustrate a growing need for the federal government to provide fiscal relief to states.
  “If states close large budget gaps by cutting things like health care for low-income families and services for seniors, that won’t just harm some of the very people already struggling as a result of the sour economy, but will also slow the economy further,†Iris Lav, the center’s deputy director, said in a statement.
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on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 2:01 pm by Cara Matthews.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
