An authoritative review of the long history of federal responses to
state and local budget crises, from Alexander Hamilton through the
COVID-19 pandemic, that reveals what is at stake when a state or
city can't pay its debts and provides policy solutions to an
intractable American problem. What should the federal government do
if a state like Illinois or a city like Chicago can't pay its
debts? From Alexander Hamilton's plan to assume state debts to
Congress's efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the
most important political disputes in American history have involved
federal government responses to state or local fiscal crises. In a
Bad State provides the first comprehensive historical and
theoretical analysis of how the federal government has addressed
subnational debt crises. Tracing the long history of state and
local borrowing, David Schleicher argues that federal officials
want to achieve three things when a state or city nears default:
prevent macroeconomic distress, encourage lending to states and
cities to build infrastructure, and avoid creating incentives for
reckless future state budgeting. But whether they demand state
austerity, permit state defaults, or provide bailouts-and all have
been tried-federal officials can only achieve two of these three
goals, at best. Rather than imagining that there is a single easy
federal solution, Schleicher suggests some ways the federal
government could ameliorate the problem by conditioning federal aid
on future state fiscal responsibility, spreading losses across
governments and interests, and building resilience against crises
into federal spending and tax policy. Authoritative and accessible,
In a Bad State offers a guide to understanding the pressing fiscal
problems that local, state, and federal officials face, and to the
policy options they possess for responding to crises.
General
Imprint: |
Oxford UniversityPress
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
July 2023 |
Authors: |
David Schleicher
(Professor of Law)
|
Dimensions: |
235 x 156mm (L x W) |
Pages: |
248 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-19-762915-4 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-19-762915-6 |
Barcode: |
9780197629154 |
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