Governments’ mid-year revenue forecasts and tax receipts fall Officials face budget shortfalls in an election year Energy-dependent U.S. states stepped over the threshold of fiscal 2017 only to face revenue shortfalls precipitated by the two-year-old oil and gas industry rout. Some aren’t sure how they will pay for schools, health care, infrastructure and universities. Lawmakers in Alaska, Oklahoma, Louisiana and North Dakota already pared budgets by billions, raising taxes and cutting programs to the bone to fill deficits. These states, as well as Wyoming, are in the throes of recession even as the U.S. enters the seventh year of an economic expansion. “We have a cash flow problem,” said Democratic Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards on June 24, after his legislature ended the longest session in its 204-year history. “There is every possibility we are going to have to take out a loan to pay regular, ordinary bills.” Even […]