Disquiet over whether prime minister Alexis Tsipras's leftist-led coalition can keep up with state expenditure and meet debt repayment obligations – it must pay nearly €1bn to the IMF by 12 May – has added to the mood of mounting angst.
On Wednesday the finance ministry vehemently rejected reports that the leftist-led government was even thinking of introducing Scrip – a substitute for legal tender – to keep up with state payments.
And they don't have the money to keep up with state-of-the-art software systems.
Or perhaps it's politics: 41percentt claim it's harder to keep up with state and federal policies than it is to bring in new customers.
In a major reversal of once far-reaching family planning policies, the budget for the population control plan had been completely removed (Iran Daily Brief, 3 August 2012) in an attempt to avoid an aging demographic similar to many Western countries that are struggling to keep up with state medical and social security costs.
And not even the most admirable conservation effort could keep up with the state's demand for electricity.
Expect a heated word or two over immigration legislation and border security, threats of major cuts to education and health and human services, and continuing struggles to keep up with the state's transportation and criminal-justice concerns.
According to one estimate, to keep up with the state of the art, a doctor would have to devote 160 hours a week to perusing papers, leaving eight hours for sleep, work and, well, everything else in life.
This skimpy new budget, which sticks close to Governor Pataki's proposed operating aid for schools, falls far short of what is needed in these districts, which are struggling to keep up with new state standards.
But budget constraints, staffing shortages and efforts by area health officials to adopt newly proposed Environmental Protection Agency testing standards aren't making it easy to keep up with the state-recommended weekly testing of bathing beach waters.
