The Cutting off of Relief to Local and State Governments Could Lead to Disaster

Something verging on the ridiculous is happening to pull out USA from the clutches of the worst brutal recession since the time of the Great Depression. The country has just started to inch upwards. If the props are removed the economy will start hurtling down again. The recovery till now has been extremely fragile.

Latest on the agenda is the vital issue of federal grants in the form of relief to the state as well as the local government. The latter are going through nightmares as regards budgets.

General Davie Jr. of Natomas Unified School District (Sacramento County in California) said, "We made the decision to close our eight elementary school libraries with a heavy heart, but our budget situation is so dire that we had no choice. We’ve also cut all of our health aides, eliminated busing, shortened our school year by five days, increased K-3 class sizes to 30:1, and issued lay off notices to about 30% of our teachers, classified staff and administration."

Decisions along these lines are ruining the lives of families and individuals. It is lethal to the efforts being made to reconstruct the economy being done by the officials of the state and local administration from coast to coast of America. The local and state governments are mandated by law in most of the cases to balance budgets. But the revenues have dropped because of the lengthy economic woes. Thus they are having no other alternative but to slash important services of the government, retrench workers, increase fees as well as taxes.

At this crucial hour it is insane for Washington to remain as an idle spectator while the carnage is being played out.

The President has asked the Congress to see to the provision of giving substantial assistance to those areas where the impact of the budget cuts is going to be the worst. In a communication to the leaders of the Congress addressed to both the parties, he expressed his concern about the persisting economic woes due to the financial collapse that "has left a mounting employment crisis at the state and local level that could set back the pace of our economic recovery." He pressed upon speedy action to stop the budget cuts from being followed up by staggering layoffs involving police personnel, firefighters, teachers and other employees in the public sector.