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Pamela M. Prah (Stateline)
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Thursday, 02 June 2011
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Lansing, MI, VA, USA. Republican governors are trying to make good on their promises to cut corporate taxes, but some are finding a bit more resistance than they may have expected.
Tom Little, who owns the Kalamazoo branch of the ServiceMaster cleaning business, says a sweeping corporate tax cut the state of Michigan just enacted will be a big help for his company.
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Matt McKillop (Stateline) Friday, 03 June 2011 Columbia, SC, USA. A war among giant retailers that animated South Carolina politics the past few months has tipped in the direction of one of the most aggressive competitors: Amazon.com.
Despite determined opposition from big retail chains and most of the state’s business establishment, a huge tax exemption for the on-line company is moving forward.
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 Daniel C. Vock (Stateline) Sunday, 29 May 2011 Chicago, IL, USA. Railroads, shippers and governments disagree all the time about transportation issues. But they are united on one point: Something has to be done about costly delays in getting trains through Chicago.
It is an all-too-common experience. An Amtrak passenger train traveling from Michigan, just eight miles from its final stop at Chicago’s downtown Union Station, has to idle for 15 minutes at a signal tower on the South Side.
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 John Gramlich (Stateline) Friday, 27 May 2011 Atlanta, GA, USA. A little-noticed new law in Georgia amounts to a homework assignment for the state’s 34,000 lawyers and judges: learn a new set of courtroom procedures by the end of next year.
Georgia lawmakers got plenty of attention this year arguing over the state budget and whether to crack down on illegal immigration. But another noteworthy event — an overhaul of the trial rules followed by lawyers and judges in every state courthouse — attracted surprisingly little notice.
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 Melissa Maynard (Stateline) Thursday, 26 May 2011 Washington, DC, USA. Whatever the result of this year’s contentious debate over collective bargaining and pay for public workers, one thing is certain: Health care coverage for state employees is going to change for good.
Amidst all of this year’s furor over collective bargaining for state employees, there has been relatively little public attention devoted to what may be the most tangible loss for them in rewriting the rules: health care benefits they have long taken for granted.
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Pamela M. Prah (Stateline) Wednesday, 25 May 2011 Jefferson City, MO, USA. Animal welfare activists won a victory at the polls last November. They say some of that victory has already been taken away by the legislature.
In Missouri, until this year, it was legal to put a full-grown dog in a cage the size of a dishwasher, never let it out for exercise, and leave it there for life. It’s still legal in many states.
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Josh Goodman (Stateline) Monday, 23 May 2011 |
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Christine Vestal (Stateline) Saturday, 21 May 2011 |
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Daniel C. Vock (Stateline) Friday, 20 May 2011 Springfield, IL, USA. The nation’s fifth-largest state has to face up to the budgetary mess it created. Its leaders finally seem willing to get started. They can’t take forever.
The Illinois General Assembly has given itself five years to fix th... |
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TS-Si News Service Thursday, 19 May 2011 Swindon, UK. An expatriate aid worker will be paid on average four times more (and sometimes much more) than a local employee doing a similar job, with local salaries pushing workers below the poverty line.
The findings have already led to the forma... |
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Josh Goodman (Stateline) Thursday, 19 May 2011 Albany, NY, USA. Governor Andrew Cuomo not only got New York's legislature to pass its budget on time but also changed spending assumptions in ways that nudge the budget closer to long-term structural balance.
Populist outrage at the big bonuses pai... |
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John Gramlich (Stateline) Wednesday, 18 May 2011 Sacramento, CA, USA. The recession has hit California hard, but partisan stalemate and conflicting voter mandates have hit it even harder.
Continual fiscal crisis has become so familiar in America’s biggest state that the annual state budget here ... |
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David Harrison (Stateline) Tuesday, 17 May 2011 Austin, TX, USA. As Texas schools enroll 500 new students a day, state leaders are lopping billions of dollars from the education budget. The courts may get the final say on an issue that could force Texas to reexamine its entire fiscal system.
It�... |
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TS-Si News Service Sunday, 15 May 2011 Raleigh, NC, USA. The perceived bias of media outlets can lead to increased political engagement — but only on specific issues. When there is a general perception of bias in the news media it actually results in increased apathy among citizens.
Re... |
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John Gramlich (Stateline) Saturday, 14 May 2011 Juneau, AK, USA. Alaska lawmakers, like their counterparts in other state capitals, have spent a lot of time this year bickering over the budget.
Alaska lawmakers face an enviable predicament: what to do with a gusher of oil revenues flowing into th... |
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Daniel C. Vock (Stateline) Friday, 13 May 2011 Charleston, WV, USA. West Virginia’s oddly-timed gubernatorial election has brought out a host of big-name candidates for this Saturday's Democratic primary. But the low-profile incumbent seems likely to end up a winner.
Until recently, Earl Ray T... |
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Daniel C. Vock (Stateline) Thursday, 12 May 2011 Olympia, WA, USA. A new study finds wide variation in how well states are keeping track of their transportation performance. Safety is the area in which they do the best job.
When Washington State transportation officials looked at highway crash dat... |
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Josh Goodman (Stateline) Wednesday, 11 May 2011 Washington, DC, USA. High prices at the pump create pressure to cut gas taxes. Road needs create pressure to raise them. So, not much happens.
Despite substantial electoral risk, Connecticut’s legislature agreed last week to a budget that raises t... |
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Melissa Maynard (Stateline) Tuesday, 10 May 2011 Fairfax, VA, USA. Shifting demographics present challenges for public workforces. Many Baby Boomers have been delaying their retirements because of the economy, but retirement incentive programs and cuts to benefits may be changing that.
As horrible... |
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Pamela M. Prah (Stateline) Sunday, 08 May 2011 Washington, DC, USA. Phone companies think now is the time to end regulation of the dwindling number of traditional landline phones. Some states wonder if they should drop controls drawn up for a different technological era. They don’t regulate wir... |
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