> it's normal for the federal government to backstop the states on major emergencies... That's the problem here. The states are using the emergency to bail ou

> it's normal for the federal government to backstop the states on major emergencies... That's the problem here. The states are using the emergency to bail out their pension and other over spending that was a problem even without the pandemic. For years now, they've been warned that the promises they made could not be kept. The math doesn't lie. They didn't care. They figured they'd worry about it when the time came, always passing the buck to the next politicians. Well, the pandemic and lack of tax revenue has now brought that point forward. The rest of us - especially those of us in red states who've been listening to raging blue states scream at us for being 'subsidized by them' for the last decade - are paying attention to this backhanded bailout for fiscal problems not directly related to covid.