California is hurtling into the budgetary void and it's not alone according to a report this month from the public policy research arm of the State University of New York. At least 30 states increase taxes in their most previously completed fiscal years; states raised more than $117 billion to fill last year's budget gaps, the Pew Center on the States estimation. Yet regardless of all those new taxes and deep cutbacks, pressure on state finances continues to build. Economists inform that without a new round of federal stimulus spending, states could encounter another round of layoffs that could kneecap the unstable economic recovery.
