Donna Gratehouse, who blogs at Democratic Diva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.

The Grand Canyon Institute, a nonpartisan Arizona think tank, did a meticulous analysis on the compensation of 10,000 Arizona workers and found that public-sector employees in Arizona are paid, on average, 6 percent less than their private-sector counterparts with similar education and experience. This certainly contrasts sharply with what the Goldwater Institute and other anti-labor interests are pushing on the news media and in the state legislature.

Donald Cohen, founder and executive director of In the Public Interest, a national resource center on privatization and responsible contracting, sends us this.

It seems there’s no public service or piece of property that private companies are not eyeing as potential revenue streams.  While funding anti-government think tanks like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), companies like Corrections Corporation of America, Waste Management, Maximus, Intuit, Laidlaw, Northrup Grumman, Koch Companies, Macquarie Capital Advisers, Pinnacle West, and UnitedHealthcare are hoping to use government as their candy store.

When housing prices began to take a dive, revenues to state and local governments plummeted. Housing construction shuddered to a halt, creating ranks of unemployed workers who began drawing unemployment benefits rather than paying local taxes on their previously middle-class salaries. The businesses of suppliers and  service-providers to contractors were forced into downturn. And many states continued to cut taxes, causing a perfect storm of budget woes for the states.

Minnesota Republican legislators’ incredibly stubborn and increasingly costly refusal to impose a small tax on the state’s wealthiest 2 percent has Minnesota in its 12th day of a government shutdown. Not only have most of the state’s vital services closed their doors but most of the state’s 38,000 public employees are out of work.

This just in: Walker must have felt the heat—he canceled the bill signing at Badger Sheet Metal Works and will be signing it elsewhere.

When Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) signs his budget bill, he will put pen to paper in a ceremony at a business owned by a convicted tax evader, reports Think Progress. The Wisconsin Budget Project says Walker’s budget includes $2.3 billion in tax cuts for corporation and the wealthy over the next 10 years.

Education cuts made last year by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) were so large that the state Supreme Court today ruled they violated the state’s constitutional requirement to provide a “thorough and efficient system of free public schools.”