Tennessee Taxpayers Get a Bailout (Along with Everyone Else)

Not a fan of the stimulus? Consider this:

State and local governments collected 2.9% less in tax money in Q1 of this year than in Q1 of 2008. Fortunately, the federal government stepped in to bail them out.

Thanks to quick bursts of stimulus money from Washington, the total cash available to state and local governments is 1.6% more than the first quarter of last year. Not quite enough to keep up with inflation, but still a huge help. Without the stimulus, the states would be in a deep, deep mess.

Thank goodness we are one nation, indivisible. And thank goodness the Republicans didn’t get to stand in the way.

With the dramatic upswing in money from Washington and downturn in various tax revenues, federal funds are now the biggest individual source of income for state governments for the first time ever.

Another interesting tidbit from the same article:

State sales tax revenues are down 2% nationwide because of the economic crisis.

But state income tax revenues are down 11%.

I still believe an income tax is a stronger, fairer system but I'm not going to close my eyes (or my blog) to interesting facts just because they're inconvenient to my position.