States Shut Down for Business

The line at the Department of Motor Vehicles is about to get worse. The Wall Street Journal reports that state legislatures are dealing with a collective $168 billion in shortfalls, accounting for 24 percent of their annual budgets for the current fiscal year, which began July 1. To make up the difference, states such as Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, and Wisconsin will be shuttering state offices for a day at a time or furloughing thousands of workers, although furloughs, which have already affected 200,000 workers in California alone, don't fix problems like ballooning pension costs.