MPA: MPA 620

By Jackson Brainerd

With state budgets still lagging pre-recession revenue levels, lawmakers hope to score a windfall by expanding legal gaming. Revenues from gambling offer an appealing alternative to the politically unpopular, increasingly undoable and invariably conflict-laden effort to hike taxes. Gambling raised $27.7 billion in fiscal year 2015 for state and local governments. Sounds good. But it represents a relatively small portion of most state budgets, somewhere between 2 and 2.5 percent.

With new technology being introduced every day, distracted driving is a major traffic safety issue. Although lawmakers at the state, federal and local level are examining a wide variety of issues related to driver focus, the most common concern is the potential distraction caused by cell phones and other technology in the car. More than 220 million people in the United States subscribe to wireless services, and it is estimated that as many as 80 percent of those subscribers use their phones while driving.

Balancing the budget is widely considered to be the foundation of state fiscal practices. Keeping a budget balanced in times of fiscal stress, however, can be an overwhelming challenge for policymakers. This report reviews the meaning of a state balanced budget and identifies the statutory and constitutional provisions that various authorities—state legislative fiscal officers, executive budget officers and academics—identify as the requirements that apply. Besides being a major concern in state policy and politics, state balanced budgets are also a subject for academic analysis.

Enough opioid prescriptions are being written to supply every person in America and 10 million Americans are likely misusing them in ways other than pain relief. Treatment and prevention programs produce multiple per-dollar savings in health care and criminal justice costs. More access is needed to the overdose recovery drug naloxone. Rural areas are drastically underserved by addiction treatment centers.