The Wall Street Journal reports on the strains Medicaid and government retirement obligations place on state and local budgets. The article quotes Dan Boyd, a senior research fellow at Rockefeller College in Albany, NY, “Governments are spending less on what they want so they can spend more on what they must spend.”
A student at Michigan State University complains, “We are getting the short end of the stick because of commitments that were made years ago.”
Some of those commitments may be of questionable value to judge by the cuts under consideration in East Lansing, where Michigan State is located: “shuttering the city’s pool, aquatic center, dog park and soccer complex” and “ending annual jazz, folk, film and art festivals.”
