States Going Belly Up Part 5

Maine -

The Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway has filed notice with the federal government that it intends to abandon 233 miles of track that stretch across the northern third of the state, from Millinocket to Madawaska.

Railroad President Bob Grindrod says freight revenue has plunged as shipments of lumber, logs and wood chips have fallen. The products are largely used in home construction.

North Carolina -

Top lawmakers say North Carolina will come up $500million short of its $19billion budget by the end of June."It would not surprise me if it hit $600[million] or $700million," said Sen. David Hoyle, a Gaston County Democrat and co-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. "But $500million seems like a given."Revenue at the end of January was $35million behind estimates. The state would be in a $300million hole if not for a special Revenue Department program that settled dozens of business tax disputes, bringing in a flood of money. But income and sales tax collections continue to trail what the legislature's fiscal staff projected.

Michigan -

Michigan has at least $51.5 billion in unfunded liabilities for state pensions and retiree benefits which could require a tax increase or cuts to services if not corrected, according to a new Pew Center on the States report.

The shortfalls represent what the state was obligated to pay current and retired state employees as of the 2008 fiscal year.Nationwide, there is a $1 trillion shortfall in the public sector's retirement benefits, according to the report that was released Thursday.The report states Michigan has an $11.5 billion shortfall in unfunded pension fund liability, and a $40 billion shortfall in health-care and other retiree benefit contributions.

Illinois -

To become solvent, the state must enact the largest tax-increase package in Illinois history, whack another $2 billion from already starved government programs and wrest major financial concessions from the state's unionized work force, a nonpartisan government watchdog contends.

In a new analysis of Illinois' "horrific" finances, the Civic Federation lays out the painful choices awaiting Gov. Quinn and the Legislature as they stare down an epic $12.8 billion budget deficit that has choked the flow of state cash to public universities and schools, transit systems and social-service agencies to the point of economic collapse.

"Doomsday is here for the State of Illinois," said Laurence Msall, the organization's president.

The Civic Federation recommends that the state income tax be increased from 3 percent to 5 percent for individuals, that retirees' pension and Social Security checks be taxed for the first time at the same rate as workers' paychecks, and the tax on cigarettes be raised by another $1 per pack. The group also favors getting rid of $181 million in corporate tax breaks.

The Real Effect
So far we've covered Ohio, New York, Illinois, Nevada, California, New Jersey, Hawaii, Georgia, Kansas, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Washington and Texas, and adding the ones in from today brings us to (+3) sixteen states out of 50 (32%) that I've covered. Who's willing to bet that it's just as bad in the other 34 states?

Here is one of the most succinct versions of the last two years that I have read yet -

In October 2008, the mainstream media and politicians of the Western world were warning of an impending depression if actions were not taken to quickly prevent this. The problem was that this crisis had been a long-time coming, and what’s worse, is that the actions governments took did not address any of the core, systemic issues and problems with the global economy; they merely set out to save the banking industry from collapse. To do this, governments around the world implemented massive “stimulus” and “bailout” packages, plunging their countries deeper into debt to save the banks from themselves, while charging it to people of the world. Then an uproar of stock market speculation followed, as money was pumped into the stocks, but not the real economy. This recovery has been nothing but a complete and utter illusion, and within the next two years, the illusion will likely come to a complete collapse.