Honesty From Joe Biden

Yes, some liberals are complaining about what Vice President Biden is saying. But this is the kind of change I wanted: “we misread the economy”. This is much better than a stubborn “stay the course” mentality that refuses to acknowledge mistakes and miscalculations.

Of course, this shows that people that Reich and Krugman were right about the stimulus being too small.

5 July 09 (am)

Workout notes It started off breezy and overcast; ended up sunny. I started at 6:30 and finished at 9:28 (2:58 for the boredom plus which included a pit stop). One timed segment was 1:41:37 for 8 miles. I did see three drunken snowflake aged guys who attempted to mimic me; they said hi and I just blew off those losers.

Overall I was pleased with the training walk, though my technique felt “clunky”; I felt slow and my right “behind the knee” area barked a bit when I overstrode.

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Note: this sort of thing is happening around here a bit:

Homeowners across the country are challenging their property tax bills in droves as the value of their homes drop, threatening local governments with another big drain on their budgets.

The requests are coming in record numbers, from owners of $10 million estates and one-bedroom bungalows, from residents of the high-tax enclaves surrounding New York City, and from taxpayers in the Rust Belt and states like Arizona, Florida and California, where whole towns have been devastated by the housing bust.

“It’s worthy of a Dickens story,” said Gus Kramer, the assessor in Contra Costa County, Calif., outside San Francisco. “These people are desperate. They know their home’s gone down in value. They’ve watched their neighborhoods being boarded up. They literally stand in there and say: ‘When can I have my refund check? I need to feed my family. I need to pay my electric bill.’ ”

The tax appeals and reassessments present a new budget nightmare for governments. In a survey conducted by the National Association of Counties, 76 percent of large counties said that falling property tax revenue was significantly affecting their budgets, said Jacqueline Byers, the association’s research director.

Officials in some states say their property tax revenue is falling for the first time since World War II.

The recession has already taken a significant toll on states’ budgets, [...]

And this is the sort of thing that is happening:

OCOA, Fla. — A year ago, the Brevard County Schools ran a robust summer program here, with dozens of schools bustling with teachers and some 14,000 children practicing multiplication, reading Harry Potter and studying Spanish verbs, all at no cost to parents.

But this year Florida’s budget crisis has gutted summer school. Brevard classrooms are shuttered, and students like 11-year-old Uvenka Jean-Baptiste, whose mother works in a nursing home, are spending their summer days at home, surfing television channels or loitering at a mall.

Nearly every school system in Florida has eviscerated or eliminated summer school this year, and officials are reporting sweeping cuts in states from North Carolina and Delaware to California and Washington. The cuts have come as states across the country are struggling to approve budgets, and California’s governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, declared a fiscal state of emergency on Wednesday.

“We’re seeing a disturbing trend of districts making huge cuts to summer school; they’re just devastating these programs,” said Ron Fairchild, executive director of the National Center for Summer Learning at Johns Hopkins University. “It’s having a disproportionate impact on low-income families.”

Add that to the fact that more families are joining the low-income bracket.

These problems are difficult to deal with.