The authors look at federal tax and spending policies that they say have increased the severity of the states' fiscal crisis. They suggest that the federal government should not preempt state tax bases and should be more concerned about helping the states than about providing tax breaks for...

The authors review the options for states facing budget troubles and suggest that increasing taes on upper-income taxpayers would be less harmful to state economies than cutting budgets. Reducing spending on programs that assist low-income people tends to reduce consumption by the full amount of...

Analyzes the degree to which curbs on unfunded mandates enacted in early 1995 would protect cities and states from major shifts in federal spending linked to a balanced budget amendment.