... employees in the form of wages, pensions, and health care; citizens, in the form of welfare spending, infrastructure, education, and nearly every other government service; investors, in the form ... American states in debt require hard and careful thinking, planning, and action. Although Standard & Poor’s did downgrade the U.S. credit for the rst time in the credit rating agency’s ... years, efforts to expand sales tax bases have been defeated or signicantly watered down in Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. In Maine’s case,...