State+Budgets

=__**State Budget Crises**__= . __//**What do you know ? What do you think ?**//__ . . __//**Do demonstrations for whatever = democracy ?**//__
 * Before this recession, cut backs on spending by the Federal government put more of the burden of many services on the states. States have long struggled to maintain programs with a balanced budget, and the elections in November sent new state representatives and state senators to office pledging to balance the budget by cutting programs. Both in Wisconsin, and now in Ohio, major cuts have been proposed to state employee's collective bargaining rights and contracts that will affect teachers, firefighters, police, ems, and other public employees. We have just started to learn about the Industrial Revolution and factory working conditions. Soon, we'll learn about labor organizations that worked to improve working conditions and wages for their members... and which slowly succeeded over time. Now, there is political pressure to roll back those gains. The alternative would be raising taxes to continue funding salaries and benefits for state workers.**
 * In Ohio, the bill in question is Senate Bill 5, and it should make headlines this week. Protests in Wisconsin have been headlines last week and through this past weekend.**
 * In Ohio, the bill in question is Senate Bill 5, and it should make headlines this week. Protests in Wisconsin have been headlines last week and through this past weekend.**
 * A great cartoon in the Dayton Daily News this weekend showed Americans looking at TV reporting on the demonstrations in Egypt and saying how glad they were to see democracy alive and well in Egypt. Then, in the next frame in Egypt, people were looking at TV reporting of the demonstrations in Wisconsin an saying how glad they were to see democracy alive and well in the American Midwest.**