In 2005, the LeRoy Collins Institute, at Florida State University, released a report warning that the state budget was overdependent on the housing boom and would soon experience deep shortfalls.
Struggling state and local governments may dismiss more workers this year as many face their deepest shortfalls since the economic downturn began, and a Congressional stalemate over the country's budget could even lead to a federal government shutdown.
Though nearly all states are required by law to balance their budgets, most have been able to do so only through rounds of painful spending cuts to make up for deep shortfalls in revenue.
In a little-noticed section of its report on Wednesday, it argued that the problem in the UK economy is not one of supply, as it used to think, but a deep shortfall in demand.
It describes this as "the deepest shortfall in over 40 years of records".
But the city's Housing Authority faces the same challenges afflicting housing agencies nationwide: deep financing shortfalls and decades-old buildings in varying states of disrepair.
Even before accounting for the fiscal devastation caused by the Sept. 11 attacks, state governments were facing the deepest budget shortfalls in at least a decade, according to a survey released today by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
A10 World Briefing A8 NATIONAL A12-22 Slow Economy and Attacks Are Pinching State Budgets State governments were facing their deepest budget shortfalls in at least a decade even before the fiscal devastation caused by the Sept. 11 attacks, a survey for the National Conference of State Legislatures found.
Since the start of the Bush administration, the United States budget has moved from surplus back into deep deficit, with a shortfall of $300 billion to $400 billion expected for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.
The official said the state was experiencing its deepest revenue shortfall in decades.
