
Pennsylvania's new Budget Secretary Charles Zogby trotted out a familiar line at the Pennsylvania Press Club luncheon on Monday when he proclaimed that Pennsylvania "doesn't have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem."
Might Secretary Zogby be reading the wrong side of the ledger? Or do Republican Governors Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Mitch Daniels of Indiana, and Rick Perry of Texas (to name just a few) have spending problems too? After all, each of those states is facing budget woes in the wake of the Great Recession.
Actually, nearly every state in the nation is facing budget woes this year thanks to a recession-driven decline in revenue collections. So it is a revenue problem.