lorne, Bills come due for loans to pay jobless
States cutting benefits, adding fees to cover cost of soaring unemployment
By Andrea Billups
-The Washington Times
Sunday, September 11, 2011
washingtontimes.com
DETROIT — States that borrowed billions of dollars from Washington to cover skyrocketing unemployment payouts during the recession now are cutting benefits, adding fees and, in some cases, increasing taxes on employers to raise the cash needed to repay the loans.
“This is not good news and the timing is terrible,” says Doug Roberts, a former Michigan state treasurer who leads Michigan State University's Institute for Public Policy and Social Research.
Michigan is one of more than two dozen cash-strapped states facing looming deadlines to pay back almost $40 billion borrowed from the federal government. California, which has the largest outstanding balance, must repay some $8.4 billion.
To pay back the loans, some states are cutting benefits.
I figured this would happen since most States received a huge amount of Federal revenue to support their budgets. But, the TEA PARTY and Republicans said that the Stimulus and even Tarp did not help the States at that time. It appears to me that you can not have it both ways - either it did help and kept States from further cuts from happening, or it did not help. Which is the correct opinion. I suggest the first. And, we want the Federal government to have a balanced budget amendment. How crazy can these individuals be? Where is the money going to come from within the States with wars, hurricanes, tornado's, floods, earthquakes, nuclear disasters, and other disasters, laid off individual on medicaid and unemployment, plus baby boomers retiring, etc.
My State receives 2/3 of its revenues from the Federal Government and discretionary funds with 1/3 coming from General Revenue. State taxes for schools, social services and correction taxes would have to go up tremendously to support these programs. How would your State be impacted?
How much of a tax increase would your State and local government have to make to support their programs?
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