Steve Flowers: Inside The Statehouse: Beyond Paul Hubbert

  As the legislative session approaches the midway point all eyes are centered on the state budgets. The state is facing the most devastating financial abyss since the Great Depression. The Education and General Funds are both in dire straits. The state coffers are lower by $250 million than expected and no federal stimulus money is available this year. The Democratic majority in the legislature was more optimistic than pragmatic with their revenue projections when they were drafting the budgets last year. Their lack of prudence has left the state in deep proration and left the new Republican led legislature with a Herculean task.