States of Disarray... Out in The Woods

I've been on a little vacation the past week or so, the kind of vacation my family excels at: a little relaxation, a lot of political discussion.

As the trip got underway, Mom and I shared a moment of dismay and horror over this story in the New York Times, illustrating the problems many states are having financially (in this case, Alabama):

It is hardly unusual these days for a government building to forgo a fresh paint job or regular lawn care to cut costs. But last week, the director of the Jefferson County public nursing home was told that the county could no longer afford to bury indigent patients.

Across town at the juvenile detention center, the man in charge was trying to figure out how to feed the 28 children in his custody when the entire cafeteria staff is let go. The tax collector warned local school districts to expect a six-month delay to get their share of property taxes. In family court, administrators plan to delay child support, custody and child abuse cases, leaving some children in the hands of the state indefinitely....

“Outside of the city of Detroit,” said Robert A. Kurrter, a managing director with Moody’s Investors Service, “it’s fair to say we haven’t seen any place in America with the severity of problems that they’re experiencing in Jefferson County.” Moody’s rates Jefferson County’s credit lower than any other municipality in the country.

Jefferson County - the county of Birmingham, Alabama's biggest city - is struggling, in part, from debt it racked up  in the last few years in the financial market; but Alabama's problems are hardly isolated. From California's enormous financial mess, to the tasteful, quiet way Connecticut is failing to balance its budget, states are hurting for money... a situation with enormous implications for upcoming national issues (like healthcare reform) and elections (like New Jersey, where Chris Christie may beat Jon Corzine simply by being not the guy currently in charge).

And all of this dire financial concern comes as economists and business leaders say that the possibility of coming out of recession is real and may happen later this year. Regular readers know I have a lot of skepticism (a LOT of skepticism) about such sunny predictions, but even I have to admit... traveling around Maine, and coming home, it seemed clear that in some sense, the worst economic disasters do seem behind us.

And for good news... that's about it.

I'm beinning to think that the way to look at our current precarious financial state is to stop looking nationally - what we're dealing with, in terms of economic problems is more local: the housing crisis is different depending on where you are... the state budget crises vary from state to state... our individual issues with jobs, earning, and getting by are our own. Nationally, numbers may suggest that things are, at least, not getting worse. But that's not the same as saying things are better... or we're out of the woods.

Driving around Maine's back roads - don't ask - two problems are widely apparent: one is that the real estate problems we have are nowhere near solved (too many for sale signs, abandoned homes, empty businesses), and the other is that no one, really, is talking about rural poverty. I remember Leigh mentioning this a while back when she was in Kentucky, and this weekend it jumped out at me as well: looking at all the "modular homes" (the business term for "double wide"), I wondered how people were getting by when jobs are scarce, people have kids to feed, and few options. No one's discussing this because, partly, Democrats tend to be urban focused, and these rural areas, very white and very isolated, tend to be conservative... when conservatives have nothing, really, to offer on poverty issues, not these days, if ever.

Looking at the Maine countryside, as well, brought the Alabama story into sharp relief - it's not a long distance from one set of back roads to another, even from far North to Deep South. To the county that can't bury its indigent dead. To the court system that can't guarantee the ability to remove abused children from their abusive situations. The county whose debt is ranked worse than Detroit's.

And so, back from vacation, back in the secure world of New York State (where we're pretending for another six months that everything is just fine), back where the internet service isn't found only at the public library... it's easy to think, again, that the worst problems are elsewhere, the disarray is isolated, out there, in the woods. It isn't; we have a national problem that isn't "national" in the sense that we all experienc it the same way. We have a rural poverty problem, a state budget problem... and sooner ot later, it will, most likely, touch all of us. In many ways... it already has... just not at the same time, or in the same ways. The question is... at what point will we step up and actually take this on? And what disaster will it take for our leaders and government officials to wake up to it? And... what will we do then? Or now? The questions pile up... and I don't see a lot of answers, not coming out of those woods, anyway.

Photo called Death of a Memory by Cindy47452 at flickr, used under a Creative Commons License.