Treat budget's disease, not its symptoms

This article in the Sun is about state and local government budgets. I suggest that you read the entire article because it is very interesting.

The part of the article that I wish to discuss states that,

Some may not realize that state government provides a fairly narrow range of services — primarily education, human services and prisons — very high priorities for nearly everyone.

In contrast, local governments provide a much broader range of services — police, fire protection, hospitals, parks and recreation, water supply, airports, most court systems, regional transportation and social services to name just some.

Therefore, raising taxes to provide the state with more revenue doesn't necessarily mean that services provided by the local government will be improved. It fact more money doesn't guarantee that anything will be improved.

It also states that

State employees receive very generous, and very expensive, retirement health care benefits — a benefit virtually no one else, in or out of the private sector, receives.

My point here is that raising taxes to provide the state with more revenue to balance the budget is not the best way to go. We must cut state spending not raise taxes.