The states all seem to be in dire financial straights. It also seems that to fix the problem they have been cutting funds, to higher education, for a very long time. This, at least in theory, forced higher education to raise their rates to cover what was lost from the states. All of this kinda makes sense.

I think the problem is in services provided by the states, unpaid federal mandates to the states, and the dedication of the right to lower any tax they can. I wish gov, on both a state, and federal level (even local), would post the budget of every agency being funded by tax dollars and ask the public to rate their importance. This would, at the very least, provide the elected with some data that, right now, seems to come from the imagination of the elected with no basis in fact. The problem, of course, is that our elected, and our bureaucracies are not exactly in favor of the electorate knowing ANYTHING. I am basing this on the simple fact that such information is marginally available on the net but, when dealing with, literally, thousands of entities, its virtually impossible to vet them all and a simple list, agency - name; location, mission, budget, and a link to their site, would be of huge help in all of this. This would allow people to rate each agency on the list and that rating could also be accessed to see what is going on. The rating would be by name and only one vote per ip address would be allowed. (I know, that can be beat but not by everybody?)

Anyway - just a thought...........