This article is quite poor. Firstly, "Instead, the state politicians are pocketing the federal cash to maintain spending, and raising taxes anyway." is quite a

This article is quite poor. Firstly, "Instead, the state politicians are pocketing the federal cash to maintain spending, and raising taxes anyway." is quite a stretch. Using his own numbers: "[New York's] $132 billion budget is now $17.7 billion in deficit." The best number I can find for the NY's share of the stimulus is about $3 Billion[1]. Arithmetic left to the reader. Secondly, I can't substantiate the population loss figure he cites, the Census[2] cites a 2.7% increase in population from 2000 - 2008. I can only guess that having 1.9 million people leave but having 2.4 million arrive constitutes an "exodus" by the Wall Street Journal. [1]http://www.nysut.org/cps/rde/xchg/nysut/hs.xsl/bulletins_12657.htm http://www.nysut.org/cps/rde/xchg/nysut/hs.xsl/bulletins_126... [2]http://www.census.gov/popest/states/NST-pop-chg.html http://www.census.gov/popest/states/NST-pop-chg.html