Godzilla ruining what was once a popular tourist destination

Things are not well in budget land for cities and states. Next week the public we’ll get a chance to hear Pennsylvania’s Governor Ed Rendell talk about the perils of managing a state budget during this major recession. To give you some sense of how frustrating this could be think of it this way.

Have you ever played Sim City where you could set taxes and provide services for your Sims? It’s great when you have the right mix and everybody loves you. Your revenues are always exceeding your costs. Then from the corner of your screen a fire breathing Godzilla appears and rampages through beautifully planned town. A whole week’s worth of game play trashed. Your people have no electricity, crime spikes, residents leave and your tax revenues just plummet.

That’s what the national recession must feel like for him. Because for Pennsylvania and 44 other states this recession is laying waste to their carefully planned budgets. For Rendell it’s no game and the news just keeps getting worse.

Last week Rendell announced that things have gotten worse and now he expects revenues to come in $1.9 billion dollars lower that what the state had planned to spend through June 30th.  He has taken emergency steps to cut spending but he’s also just weeks away from presenting the state’s next fiscal budget that begins July 1st.

(editors note: Two hours after I posted this story, Gov Rendell announced the revenue to spending gap for this year has widened to $2.3 billion dollars. He told KYW “the governor for the first time says that he expects there will be layoffs of state workers next fiscal year.”)

So what’s he going to do? Well we may get some additional insight into Gov Rendell’s thinking when he appears next Tuesday, Jan 23rd at the Kimmel Center for a live on stage interview with Radio Times Host Marty Moss-Coane. The topic will be governing in a time of shrinking budgets. The interview is being taped and will be televised on WHYY TV on Jan 30th.

The interview is sponsored by the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce and you can register to go here. Here’s the press release WHYY put out on the event as well.

Since you have been keeping up with the news, we want to know ahead of this interview your thoughts abouts Rendell’s budget problem. Is he handling it well? What state services would you be willing to cut? Should we raise taxes? Also, What questions do you want Marty to ask the Governor?