State Budgets Busted Across The Country

NEAL CONAN, host:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.

The richest state in the richest country in the world faces a massive budget deficit and must make immediate choices about new taxes and deep cuts in health care, education and other government services.

Forty-seven other states project serious problems of their own this year, but California's is especially large and dramatic and raises fundamental questions about priorities. What obligations do we accept to protect the weak, the sick and the poor?

Later in the program, a case of vigilante justice on the Opinion Page this week. Four men in Philadelphia beat a man believed to have raped an 11-year-old girl, and some are cheering, but first how much of California's budget crisis is unique to California? What can other states learn, and what's the state's obligation and the citizens'?

Our phone number, 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our Web site. Go to npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.

And we begin with Willy LaMar, who joins us from the Peg Taylor Center for Adult Day Health Care in Chico, California. Nice to have you with us today.

Ms. WILLY LaMAR (Participant, Peg Taylor Center for Adult Day Health Care in Chico, California): Thank you. Thank you for having me.

CONAN: And as you know, facilities like yours are threatened under proposed budget cuts. What happens to you if this gets shut down?

Ms. LaMAR: Well, it would be such a back-step from so many of us here. What they do here is such a positive influence, it's positive for the budget, it saves the state money, it keeps people out of nursing homes and keeps them in an environment where they're safe, they're encouraged to be healthier. It's good mental health, it's good physical health, and that's what keeps us out of the doctors and the hospitals.

CONAN: What do you do there during the day?

Ms. LaMAR: During the day there are activities. I personally, I give physical and occupational therapy during the week. I had a stroke in '06, and when I first arrived here, I was not able to walk at all. I was in a wheelchair. Now I walk with a quad-cage. So daily I have some kind of therapy.

There's always mental therapy going on because there's activities that challenge the mind. There's conversation with other people who are in the same boat as you or perhaps a different kind of boat. We have a lot of elderly and other disabled people who really rely on each other for communication that you would not get if you were at home.

At home, your only friend could possibly be the TV, and I'm afraid if they close the centers, a lot of us would be regressing into that idea again. I'm afraid muscles would lose their integrity, and people would become sicker and more dependent on their families and on the state.

CONAN: And have you been in touch with state legislators to let them know about your concerns?

Ms. LaMAR: Yes, we have written letters. We have called. Yes, we've made it very well known how we feel, you know, we're getting older, and we're disabled, but we still vote, and we would not vote for anybody that would do away with day-care centers. They are such a win-win situation.

You know, family members, bless their hearts, are trying their best to deal with their elderly and with their disabled, but they really need a break away from it, as do the clients. If you're together with anybody 24/7, you don't have any room to grow, and here you can go home at night, and you can talk about what you did during the day, what you accomplished. You can be an addition to your family, not just a dependent.

CONAN: Willy LaMar, as you know, the people of California just recently voted against raising taxes, things that might have ameliorated the budget crisis.

Ms. LaMAR: Yes.

CONAN: And so what do you say to them? I mean, the people were given a choice, and they said no. We're not going to raise money. If we have to make cuts, we'll go ahead and make cuts.

Ms. LaMAR: Well, if they have to make cuts, I think the cuts are going to have to be somewhere else because if you close the centers, you're also, you're going to be losing all the money that the centers are saving. You can see in black and white how much the centers save.

If these people had to go to nursing facilities, it would cost the state a lot more. Like the particular day-care center that I go to, the Peg Taylor Center, this is a nonprofit organization, and I can't think of one nursing facility that is nonprofit. This facility is to help people stay out of the other facilities that actually drain our budget and keep them out of the doctor's office, which strains the budget. It's a pro-health, pro-life, where not only does it help on paper with the budget but if it gives pride back to the people, and we are responsible for our elderly and our disabled. We're not like other societies. We don't take care of our own.

CONAN: Willy LaMar, good luck.

Ms. LaMAR: Thank you.

CONAN: Willy LaMar, one of many people in California that receives assistance in adult day health care, one of the programs that could close with California's proposed budget cuts, with us from the Peg Taylor Center for Adult Day Health Care in Chico.

And joining us now is Patt Morrison, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, host of "Patt Morrison," a public-affairs show on member-station KPCC in Pasadena, joining us from the studios there. Nice to have you with us, back on the show.

Ms. PATT MORRISON (Columnist, Los Angeles Times): Thank you, Neal.

CONAN: And well, we heard about that. What's the situation? As I understand it, unless - the legislature needs to arrive at a budget by the end of the month.

Ms. MORRISON: The end of the month, a few weeks away. We have a governor who used to make movies about apocalyptic scenarios, and now he's presiding over a state that's got one. The cuts are going to have to come from somewhere.

I interviewed the governor last week, and you could sense his frustration about this. Earlier, he'd said, you know, he sees the pain in people's eyes, he hears the fears, but there's no choice. The money has to come out of somewhere.

CONAN: And there's no possibility of raising taxes at this point.

Ms. MORRISON: Well in California, we have painted ourselves into a very odd corner in a lot of ways with our initiative process, which of course is well-known across the United States. We have raised the bar so that it takes a two-thirds vote to raise taxes. It also takes a two-thirds vote of the legislature to pass a budget. So we've really found ourselves a little bit like Gulliver, and we've been tied down by Lilliputians for years.

CONAN: So in terms of discretionary spending, I assume education and health care, that's the bulk of it.

Ms. MORRISON: That is the bulk of it: education, health care and prison care is - and the cost of prisons because Californians voted for three strikes without making a means of paying for three strikes. A lot of people are in prison now for drug offenses and other offenses. We have said this much money has to go for education, and no, you can't touch it. So we've locked ourselves up in a lot of ways, not just a lot of prisoners.

CONAN: And as the legislature faces this deadline, it does occur to me that California has been in the situation of not having a budget on time several times in the past few years.

Ms. MORRISON: Oh, it's a familiar scenario. We almost have bets here to see how long they can go without a budget. I think it was several months last time. In the old days, they took the roof off the College of Cardinals when they couldn't pick a pope. We thought about doing that for the legislature, but the weather's too nice. It wouldn't work.

CONAN: And does the state risk going into default unless the cuts are made?

Ms. MORRISON: Well, the state - paying the bond obligations is really the first thing the state needs to do because if you stay out of default, you've still got some credit, you've still got some standing. Without that kind of credit standing, things could just accelerate and snowball and get a whole lot worse.

CONAN: And the choices that people face, there was measures on the ballot just what, a couple, three weeks ago, that people voted against that would have helped this situation.

Ms. MORRISON: They would have added some taxes, they would have extended some spending, and some of them were a bit of smoke and mirrors for the budget, but we've been doing that for a while, but a lot of them would've increased taxes to pay for some of these things that now have to be cut, and people simply said no. People said they were tired of doing the job that the legislature has been doing, but the legislature has been hamstrung in a lot of ways from doing that job.

CONAN: Nevertheless, people were essentially presented with a choice, and they voted to make cuts.

Ms. MORRISON: And they voted no, and now these cuts, as we heard from your guest, Willy LaMar, are coming home to roost, but people are saying oh well no, not this cut, not this particular cut. Don't release these prisoners. Don't cut this program. And so people are beginning to understand the consequences, and we're also looking at losing federal funding for a lot of these programs. Matching funding won't be forthcoming if we take the California bucks away.

CONAN: So the choices left for the state, well law enforcement, as you mentioned, prisons and other areas of law enforcement are choices to be made, too.

Ms. MORRISON: Law enforcement, fire fighters, early release of non-violent prisoners, people who have only a year left to serve on their sentences. All of these are certainly on the list. The closing of 220 state parks is something the governor is concerning, and of course all these cuts to health and human services. But here again you have the penny-wise-pound-foolish scenario. If you cut somebody off and save $50 on medication for that person, who knows but what they won't land in the emergency room and end up costing the state $5,000.

CONAN: We're talking with Patt Morrison about the budget crisis in the state of California. How much of it is unique to California, and what are the obligations of the state to its people, and what are the obligations of the citizens? 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org.

Roger(ph) joins us, Roger calling from San Francisco.

ROGER (Caller): Yes, thank you. I'm absolutely willing to pay more taxes in this state for - what we should have is a compassionate state like we once had.

This state went off the tracks back in the '70s when they passed an ill-advised proposition called 13. Everything started to go down from that point: our school system, our health system. Everything started to deteriorate from taxpayers just being so selfish and greedy, worrying about themselves and not about the state as a whole.

CONAN: Obviously California did pretty well since the 1970s, despite Proposition 13, which was about property taxes, if memory serves.

ROGER: That's right. Now if you live in this state, two people have a home right across from each other. They're exactly the same home, but if you bought it later, you're going to pay two times, three times more taxes than the person who bought in the '70s, earlier. It's just an unjust proposition, and it's caused us no end of trouble.

CONAN: Yet it's still on the books, and the people, as we just mentioned, just voted a few weeks ago against new taxes. A lot of people in California think they're paying too much.

ROGER: If they don't pay more taxes, in the long run it's going to cost them far more. They just have to bite the bullet and understand if you want to have a quality life in this state and protect the poorest of our state and protect people in the state, you have to pay more taxes.

I paid plenty of taxes. I do not want to - I do not like paying taxes, but when you consider the people, and you consider the state, it's necessary. It's just - we've been very fortunate in this country that we pay so little compared to other countries.

CONAN: Roger, thanks very much for the call, appreciate it.

ROGER: Thank you.

CONAN: And we'll be back with more from Patt Morrison, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, who's also the host of "Patt Morrison," a public-affairs show on KPCC, our member-station in Pasadena, and we'll also be talking about how much California's problems are shared with other states around the country, some 47 other states facing maybe not budget deficits so large but pretty substantial nevertheless. Stay with us. I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

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CONAN: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. If you're just joining us, we're talking about the budget crisis that forces California and many other states to make tough decisions about which services to cut and how to pay for those that they keep.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says his state has run out of time and must now either find new money or make very deep cuts in many social services. This would affect most the poorest and most vulnerable of the state's residents.

Our guest is Los Angeles Times columnist Patt Morrison. He joins us from KPCC, our member-station in Pasadena, where she hosts a public-affairs program, and in a few minutes, we'll hear from Corina Eckl, who will tell us that things in California are bad, but other states may be in worse shape.

Let's see if we can get another caller on the line, and this is Ann(ph), and Ann's calling us from Paradise, California.

ANN (Caller): Yes, I wanted to tell you that Republican legislators in the state face great risk because if any of them vote in favor of any tax, even one-tenth of million percent, they face a recall. An immediate recall petition will go out in their district.

CONAN: Or at least competition in the next Republican primary. Patt Morrison, is that a political fact?

Ms. MORRISON: Oh absolutely. They've already mounted recalls against some of the six Republicans who voted just to eke out this past budget, to carry it barely over the line of a two-thirds majority. The Republicans in California have, for the most part, taken a no-tax pledge, and if they want to keep their jobs, they're going to have to vote no on taxes, and this is part of the quandary.

CONAN: And nevertheless, if they're facing this dire situation, clearly they've made the political calculation that this is more important than service cuts, which could affect their constituents.

Ms. MORRISON: And it's when they start hearing from constituents, any legislator starts hearing from constituents, that I think there's going to be some re-thinking and reconfiguration. If you have Democrats who are hearing from constituents who are upset because there have been prisoner releases, and people are in their neighborhoods they wouldn't want there, or Republicans whose constituents are finding that services they took for granted have been cut, then you're going to have the system upended.

CONAN: And how is this - I'm sorry. Ann, go ahead.

ANN: And one of the things that many of the disabled here, it will be a 26-percent decrease for those that are disabled and are on SSI.

CONAN: Okay, Ann, is that - does that include you?

ANN: Yes, it does.

CONAN: So this is something - and who's your representative? Have you been in touch with them?

ANN: I can't - I'm nervous, so I can't think of his name at this point, but it will leave many people homeless and without services.

CONAN: Ann, thanks very much.

ANN: Thank you.

CONAN: Good luck to you.

ANN: Bye.

CONAN: And let's go next to - this is Pat(ph), Pat with us from Prescott, Arizona.

PAT (Caller): Yeah, hello. I - we have kind of the same budget problems here in Arizona, and I kind of watched the California one, you know, their vote and stuff like that, and I had read that at a blog called Caletics(ph), isn't the case that Californians aren't necessarily anti-tax, but they were against the taxes that they were offered? Because I saw that they had - you know, that they were actually favoring raising taxes, say on like marginal tax rates on the richest people.

CONAN: Patt Morrison, can you help us out there?

Ms. MORRISON: The proposals that were put before the voters on May 19, your caller is quite right. There were some liberals who were against them for different reasons than conservatives were against them. Each of them thought it went too far in the other direction. So they weren't very adroitly put, but again the way we've structured things, if you're going to make these increases and changes, you have to get the voters' approval, and if the voters don't like what's put before them, whatever the reason, they're going to vote no. Voters only approve about a third of what's put before them, and in this case they said definitely not.

CONAN: Pat, are the cuts going ahead in Arizona?

PAT: As far as I know. I know that our legislator gave this basically, like, cut-everything sort of budget, and even the - our accidental governor, who you know is a Republican, they were even too much for her. So she kind of put forward this sort of wishy-washy plan, too, but we're basically - we're being held hostage by Grover Norquist here.

CONAN: The accidental governor because the last one came to Washington, D.C.

PAT: Yeah, you know, he's having all the Republicans sign these no-new-taxes-ever sort of things, and you know, it's out of state interest, holding all of us hostage.

CONAN: All right, Pat, thanks very much for the call, appreciate it.

PAT: Yup, goodbye.

CONAN: And joining us now is Corina Eckl, fiscal program director at the National Conference of State Legislatures, with us at the studios of Colorado Public Radio in Denver. Nice to have you with us.

Ms. CORINA ECKL (Fiscal Program Director, National Conference of State Legislatures): Thank you, Neal.

CONAN: And we just heard a little bit about Arizona. Obviously, we've heard a little bit more about California. How bad is it elsewhere?

Ms. ECKL: It's pretty bad everywhere around the nation. As you indicated, at least 47 states have budget gaps that they're trying to close. The numbers in California stand out by their sheer magnitude and volume. The budget problems California faces tend to be bigger than the general-fund budgets of most states.

So you already have that, but if you look at the budget problems states are facing as a share of their budgets, there are actually some states with bigger problems than California. I know that's hard to imagine, but your caller Pat from Arizona, Arizona's budget gap is bigger and Nevada. There are at least a dozen states that have budget gaps that are in excess of 20 percent of general-fund spending. Those are pretty massive budget gaps.

CONAN: A fifth of the budget, in other words.

Ms. ECKL: Yeah, exactly.

CONAN: And are cuts being ordered everywhere?

Ms. ECKL: Everywhere. You know, in the past recessions, we've actually seen states increasing taxes to be part of the solution of the problem. This time, we didn't see any tax-increase proposals coming out early. We say mostly tax cuts - excuse me, spending cuts, but as time has progressed, we're seeing deep, deep spending reductions, and now more and more states are talking about raising revenues because the spending cuts have been so deep.

CONAN: As we've pointed out repeatedly and as the voters in California demonstrated last month, new taxes are unpopular.

Ms. ECKL: They are unpopular. Nobody wants to pay more, but you get to a point where you start really getting into the, you know, the flesh and bone of state service and programs. So at a certain level, some taxpayers are willing to pay more in taxes just to try to stave off some of the deepest of the budget cuts.

CONAN: Let's see if we can get another caller on the line. This is Paul(ph), Paul with us from Grand Rapids in Michigan.

PAUL (Caller): Hello, sir. I am in favor of taxes, but I don't trust my legislators to spend it correctly. I understand that you can only have so much services without raising more revenues, but my legislators have a history of taking this money and wasting it on a variety of things.

CONAN: And so you would oppose any tax increases, as long as those particular legislators are the ones in charge of spending it?

PAUL: I would be very wary, sir. I understand that our school systems and our road systems here in Michigan are in an incredible amount of trouble, and while I'd certainly be willing to do my share, I just don't trust my legislators not to give themselves another 35-percent pay raise or to make the wrong sorts of cuts.

We tend to make short-term cuts that save money in the short term, but they don't have long-term thinking behind them. Too many politicians are too worried about getting re-elected, even in Michigan with term limits.

CONAN: And in terms of short-term or long-term budget cuts, the kind of crises that state budgets are facing around the country, it doesn't matter. People are just making cuts.

PAUL: Yes, sir.

CONAN: Yeah, Michigan, are budget cuts affecting you?

PAUL: Well, I work for the state prison system, sir, and actually we're getting ready to dump about 4,000 convicts back out onto the streets, and a number of these individuals aren't ready to go back. It's kind of ironic because there are actually a lot of prisoners who are ready to go back out on the streets, people who could be a part of society, and we're not always letting those people out, but we are letting out a lot of very dangerous individuals.

Unfortunately, sex offenders tend to be the most well-behaved prisoners inside the system, which means that when the parole board starts looking at them, and people start looking at the cost of incarcerating those sorts of people, those are the people that they start wanting to let back out.

CONAN: Okay, Paul, thanks very much for the call, appreciate it.

PAUL: Yes, sir. You have a nice day.

CONAN: Bye-bye, and Patt Morrison, I wanted to bring you back into the conversation. A lot of people feel like Paul does. Legislators spend foolishly, and if you just give them more money, it's more foolishness.

Ms. MORRISON: And that's one of the reasons people voted down these measures in May. People don't trust the legislature to do the right thing. One of the effects of Prop 13, 31 years ago, was to take a lot of money out of the hands of local government and give it to Sacramento, give it to the state government, and people have felt that they haven't had their finger on where that money is going and what it's being spent for for a long time.

CONAN: And Patt Morrison, just - excuse me, and Corina Eckl, just by way of checking, Michigan I assume is one of those states with budget problems.

Ms. ECKL: Severely, and in fact Michigan had budget problems for the past eight years, at least. So they went down early, and they've stayed down the entire time. What I would say, though, in terms of, you know, lawmakers and how they spend limited resources, every state program and service has some constituency associated with, and so what one person sees as an essential or core service, someone else may not. So it's putting lawmakers between a rock and a hard place.

You know, how do you determine what the most important services and programs government should fund? You know, it's a deliberative process. It's negotiation among lawmakers.

CONAN: Let's get Walter(ph) on the line. Walter's calling us from Soldotna in Alaska.

WALTER (Caller): Yes, hi. My mother still lives in California, and I just wanted to say that in response to the comments that are being made about Prop 13 causing these problems, I think that that's a common thing to blame these kind of problems on, but actually there were a lot of factors, like that Enron collapse and things like that.

But my mother's situation was that she would have been forced out of her house probably 20 years before she finally decided to move if it hadn't been for Prop 13, and I think that an acquisition model of taxation for property owners is really important to people who want to retire and live where they always have been.

CONAN: And so there - obviously a lot of people were in favor of Proposition 13, enough to pass it and to keep it on the books since.

WALTER: Yeah. In her situation, the house that originally was purchased in the '70s for about $92,000 sold 30 years later for over a million and a half dollars. And meanwhile, all the houses in the neighborhood had gone up to that level and she was on fixed income retirement would not have been able to continue to live there had she had to pay for (unintelligible) taxes.

CONAN: Mm-hmm. All right. Thanks very much for the call, Walter.

WALTER: Yeah. Thank you.

CONAN: Bye-bye.

Ms. ECKL: Neal, can I point something out?

CONAN: Go ahead, please.

Ms. ECKL: Prop 13 was definitely necessary in so far as protections for homeowners like the caller's mother. But it also had a lopsided factor that ended up shifting the property tax base. Disneyland pays less per square foot than someone who may buy a new home in the San Fernando Valley. And Warren Buffett pointed out that he pays less in taxes on his lavish home in Laguna Beach than he does his home in Omaha.

So there's got to be some equity in there to protect homeowners and yet gets some balance to the tax structure. And that's what we're suffering from in California in part.

CONAN: Let's get Beth on the line. Beth with us from San Mateo, California.

BETH (Caller): Oh, yes. I've been hearing a lot about how the voters in California did not want - are against higher taxes. And I'm not against some higher taxes but there's two things. One is, Proposition 13 could be modified to deal with the commercial properties. And numbers two, and here's the important thing, is every initiative that they put on the ballot said, you know, it had some really negative hook on it. So, you know, charge more taxes here but, you know, really do a bad thing over there, like, with the budget caps. It was, you know, oh, put caps on things but…

CONAN: Cap spending to limit the no more spending than certain amounts.

BETH: Right. And so, it's like, yeah, we were given the opportunity to vote but we were given the opportunity to vote on really bad initiatives. And, you know - and then, I'm sorry but I thought we voted to have a legislature to do their job and then they just pawned it off on us and then, give us, you know, terrible, terrible choices when they have the freedom to come up some things and also (unintelligible)…

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CONAN: It all seems to be bad choices right now, Beth.

BETH: I'm sorry.

CONAN: It all - all the choices seemed to be pretty bad right now.

BETH: Well, yes. But like I said, they put in things that bite you - that come to bite us in year - you know, in a few years from now. And so, this is really.

CONAN: That might epitomize the clown foolish.

BETH: I wish they would have saved the money and put for the election, done their jobs and spend the money that they, you know - that the election cost on taking care of mental health issues for, you know, some of these adults or health insurance for children or things like that that they wanted - that they were asking us to cut.

CONAN: All right. Beth, thanks very much for the call. I appreciate it. And we're talking about the budget crisis in California and other states around the country.

You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

And John(ph) joins us. John calling from Freemont, Indiana.

JOHN (Caller): Yeah.

CONAN: Go ahead, John.

JOHN: Oh, I just wanted to make a comment that, basically, as a taxpayer, we are being bled dry. The solution here is not taxing us anymore. The solution here is not throwing anymore money at this situation. The guy from Grand Rapids is right although I disagree with him in terms of his being in favor of taxes.

He is correct. Our legislatures have totally, totally lost touch with their constituency. They have this wanton attitude towards money like it's just this endless supply and it's not. They are not good fiduciaries in the handling of our tax dollars. Our tax dollars are in trust and in trust by the citizens of this nation and of the state of California and of the state of Indiana.

CONAN: And John…

JOHN: And these guys have absolutely no clue how to handle money.

CONAN: John, I assumed whether to cap it or not is one issue. But the state, presumably, has obligation to keep our roads up to date and…

JOHN: I understand that. too.

CONAN: …and education and well, state police.

JOHN: And (unintelligible) here, it's not throwing more money at it. Basically, we're going to have lick our wounds. We're literally going to have to sit back, let this thing take its course, and lick our wounds and make adjustments as necessary. But, you know what? We're losing jobs up here in Indiana and our -we're impacted by the auto industry, what's happening there. And we've got -we just had another factory filed Chapter 11 up here. And, you know, in our business, you know, in real estate, which is what I do, we're impacted.

And these people absolutely, you know, need to understand this is a situation that is going to take place whether we like or not. And how we deal with it is going to tell tale. But the thing is, how can you continue to increase taxes on a citizenry that is being bled dry?

CONAN: All right, John. Thanks very much. Appreciate it. And Corina Eckl, I wanted to ask you, lick our wounds. This is going to have to happen in a lot of states. These cuts are going to go ahead.

Ms. ECKL: Well, and I don't want to pour salt to the wound, but keep in mind that we're fairly early in this current recession. States have been dealing with problems certainly for a couple of years. But we know from history that even after the national recession ends, the states have between 12, 18 months, perhaps, 24 months of pretty serious problems.

And what's happened so far, state revenues have been plummeting, collection amounts have fallen well below - over and over below - what forecasters thought they would be. So revenues are actually shrinking. We're looking at many, many states saying that they're going to have less money this year than last and even less money next year than this year.

So you're talking of a couple of years here whereas, you know, people would be licking their wounds. And you know, at some point, some people will step in with this notion of raising revenues.

But I also wanted to point out, I think it's important because I think you have listeners who will feel this way, there are many who do look at the current situation and say, hey, this is an opportunity for state government to hit reset, to rethink what services they provide, how they deliver them, so some actually see this current fiscal crisis as somewhat of an opportunity.

CONAN: And Patt Morrison, I wanted to ask you about that in the 30 seconds we have left.

Ms. MORRISON: Governor Schwarzenegger talked about blowing up boxes when he came into office. The boxes are collapsing around him. So a lot of people are looking at this as an opportunity to rebuild a state whose structure itself may be under assault and under question.

CONAN: Patt Morrison, thanks very much for being with us today.

Ms. MORRISON: My pleasure.

CONAN: Patt Morrison is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and the host of KPCC's "Patt Morrison Show." She joined us from Pasadena, California from the studios there.

And we'd also like to thank Corina Eckl, program - fiscal program director of the National Conference of State Legislatures with us today at the studios of Colorado Public Radio in Denver.

Coming up, Christine Flowers knows vigilante isn't - is wrong but still can't help cheering for a bit of street justice that was dished out last week in Philadelphia. The Opinion Page is next. Stay with us.

I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

(Soundbite of music) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.