BluegrassForeclosure.com

From the NYTimes.com:  “It is one of the bleakest new years that states have seen in over a decade.

On Wednesday, governors in California, Kentucky and New York kick off the season of addresses to state lawmakers as at least 36 states struggle to close budget shortfalls and also begin confronting the next fiscal year’s woes.

For many of the states, the new year spells the end to accounting maneuvers, one-off solutions, tax increases and service cuts that were as deep as lawmakers thought they could bear. And governors confront this situation in an election year in which dozens of their jobs are in play, and as many state legislators face their own election challenges.

. . . .

High unemployment, continued reverberations from the foreclosure crisis and a severe drop in all forms of taxes have combined to leave states — which historically have lagged behind the private sector in recession recoveries by about two years — reeling.

State tax collections for the third quarter of 2009 showed a drop of 10.7 percent, the third consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue decline, according to the Rockefeller Institute, though the dip was smaller than the preceding two quarters.

. . . .

Cost savings so far have included cuts to specific programs; Michigan and California both stopped offering dental services to some Medicaid recipients last year. But there have also been layoffs — Kentucky’s state work force has shrunk by 1,600 over the last two years — and symbolic moves, like Delaware’s decision last year to turn state-office thermostats down in the winter and up in the summer.

. . . .

States have also been forced to rethink how they do business, with examples like energy savings, new approaches to the management of prisons or the ways they manage gambling. Kentucky, for instance, wants video lottery terminals at race tracks.

“The good news is that there’s a target-rich environment for any states interested in new ideas,” said Robert B. Ward, the director of Fiscal Studies at the Rockefeller Institute, which is based in Albany.”

Which begs the question, why gamble on slots at the race tracks, if there are other alternatives that can be looked at, especially in light of the fact that at least one of the houses of the Kentucky Legislature steadfastly will not allow expanded gambling?

Does Gov. Beshear know something we don’t?  Or is there another reason?  Leave a comment with your thoughts.