State and local governments face a total deficit of about $131 billion for 2009 and $181 billion for 2010, the Government Accountability Office figures. Honestly, this estimate seems low.
But, low or not, it may be as good as it gets.
The GAO notes that after 2010 and for the next 50 or so years, “absent any intervention or policy changes, state and local governments would face an increasing gap between receipts and expenditures in the coming years.”
The short report has a compelling graph of these future projected imbalances (pasted below).
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