ECONOMIC RECOVERY WHILE CARRYING A MOUNTAIN OF DEBT ON YOUR BACK

States are carrying a massive and growing problem that experts say could be a drag on the nation's economic recovery -- a combined $180 billion in state and local budget deficits for the 2011 fiscal year, according to John E. Petersen, a professor at the George Mason University's School of Public Policy.

"States and localities are experiencing unrelenting pressure from unceasing waves of budget gaps, which stem not from impetuous increases in spending, but from plummeting revenues -- a deterioration unseen since the Great Depression," Petersen wrote recently in Governing magazine.

"The macroeconomic worry is that widespread cutbacks by states and localities will create a drag on the economy." http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/states-budget-deficits-could-weigh-on-national-recovery/19488677