Can I just chime in to say that Massachusetts is a freakin' mess too? And We can all think Darth Romney for that one. The guy pretended to slash budgets so he could say "I can slash budgets." He lowered the taxes for the wealthy so he could say "I lowered taxes." His entire run as governor has been just to pretend to run a state so he could get street cred for his Presidential career... and frankly, I'm glad he didn't even get the party's nomination. Heck, I would've rather seen Bush for 4 more years than Romney. When he was governor, he spent more time running for president than actually doing anything. And then, his last act was to slash the budget so harshly, there was no money left for anything. And this was to fill in an imaginary budget crisis. now we HAVE a budget crisis, and there's no way to get out of it.
Enter our new governor, Deval Patrick... or as I like to call him, Woody Allen's more neurotic half brother. When he came into office, everyone put him under a microscope for rediculous little things, and I feel that's why he hasn't actually done anything. he's so afraid of bad publicity, that he got bad publicity for not doing anything. he refused to raise the taxes Romney shattered, and he hasn't made one single major change to Romney's "I don't give a crap" policy. Now, we have to raise the sales tax, the gas tax, and all that... you know, recessive taxes that affect the poor more, instead of just jacking up the income tax for the wealthy.