As this article from the Tax Foundation states, you can’t make this stuff up…

direct democracy, states

See highlighted article about the struggle among a group promoting an initiative to curb costs: covering pensions for new employees’, raising the new employee retirement age and capping the pension formula. The initiative also would prevent the city council from passing retroactive increases (which is what Detroit did in the middle of its fiscal mess).  Looks [...]

ballot initiatives, direct democracy

We have two opposing camps in the muni-market at the moment: those who say it is the next systemic shoe to drop and the rating agencies that are systemically raising ratings.
Which is right?
We have moved from a market that has had heavy intermediation from the bond insurance companies to one where investors are on their [...]

ballot initiatives, bond insurance, community development district, direct democracy, liquidity, municipal bankruptcy, municipal bond default, ratings, state and local politics, states

Midterm congressional elections will be lively this year.   Conditions are ripe for tax and spending initiatives and numerous recall elections are also on the popular agenda.  Budget deficits, rising taxation and runaway spending are factors leading to tax and spending limitations.  Anger at the federal government sometimes gets played out at the state and local level [...]

ballot initiatives, California, direct democracy, Florida, state and local politics, states