Although Rick Perry is no longer a presidential candidate, he still governs more than 25 million people. In the early stages of his candidacy last year, Texas’ budget struggles made headlines as they called into question his self-avowed fiscal conservatism. Although they often disappear from the headlines once the final budget is approved, state budget…
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Detroit meetings must be public
A blog about urban austerity and fiscal crisis can’t help but get preoccupied with Detroit. There’s so much backstory here that it’s unavoidable to jump in to the middle. For now, I wanted to highlight the development of a twist in the state’s effort to declare a financial emergency in Detroit. The panel charged with…
What a Drag | Jared Bernstein | On the Economy
A simple and elegant statement of why balanced budget laws and cutting government spending aren’t necessarily economically responsible, even as they are touted as the height of fiscal responsibility. Unlike the feds, states have to balance their budgets every year, which means they either raise taxes or cut services. They haven’t done much on the…
Cities and tax foreclosures
What happens when property owners stop paying their taxes? On January 8, 2012 the Detroit Free Press examined the property tax problem in Michigan (“Unpaid taxes put thousands of metro homeowners at risk of foreclosure”). This story reminds us that cities and counties are losing tax revenue not just as property values fall, but as people struggle…
Fiscal policing in Europe
The Times editorializes about the austerity plan adopted at the E.U. summit: The fiscal pact imposes substantial fines on any signatory nation whose deficit averages more than 0.5 percent of gross domestic product over a full economic cycle, a condition the United States would have had great trouble meeting over the past three decades. The summiteers…