By Gene Krebs. On Sunday night my wife and I watched a very thought provoking piece on 60 Minutes entitled "State Budgets: Day of Reckoning". I strongly recommend you watch this clip if you want insight on the pending fiscal collapse of our state and local governments. We have been spending way too much on certain aspects of government in a manner that is duplicative and unnecessary.
The reason governance reform is so difficult is because we must meet certain basic needs while also keeping our core costs down in order to compete with other countries. But the trouble is that we waste vast amounts, and to make matters worse, our states and localities are data deserts, which prevents us from making informed decisions about what can and cannot be cut.
In the video, CBS interviewed Meredith Whitney, a fiscal analyst from Wall Street who correctly forecast the housing disaster several years ago. She now claims we are heading for another collapse for state and local governments, but she can’t get enough good data to tell exactly how bad it will be. This lack of good, hard data is something Greater Ohio has been echoing for several years, along with warnings of the pending fiscal collapse.
Watch the video, and let us know what you think. How far should reforms go?