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Scales of justice weigh up the US corporate dollar
Hand on heart,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], tongue in cheek, Harvey Bryant, the Virginia Beach city attorney,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], offered this solution to his office's cash shortage: "We could have the Nike domestic violence prosecutor," he said, "though we would have to change our slogan to 'Just don't do it'."
Mr Bryant is looking for a business or private sponsor for this unglamorous cause, because the state of Virginia has run out of money to pay for prosecutions in its courts.
In the absence of a corporate benefactor, victims of misdemeanour domestic assault in Virginia Beach - those whose skin has been bruised but not broken - will not have a state prosecutor to put their case.
This is the 21st-century version of trickle-down economics: Virginia has a budget deficit of $US1.3 billion ($A2.2 billion). In October, the governor announced an immediate budget cut of 7 per cent for the prosecutor's office.
"We had already spent half of that money,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]," Mr Bryant said.
The situation in Virginia Beach,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], population 430,000,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], is one facing America's constituent states,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], which are in their worst financial crisis since World War II, says the National Governors Association.
President George Bush's $1100 billion economic package announced this week is no help. Mr Bush had reportedly considered offering as much as $10 billion to the states. Instead,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], there is the prospect of more pain: the states' share of the new Homeland Security infrastructure has been put at $2.9 billion by the National Governors Association.
The combined budgetary shortfall of the states for this financial year is estimated at $54.5 billion,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]. Next year's is forecast at $63 million to $75 billion,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych].
Leading the way is California, with a projected shortfall of $37 billion, about 25 per cent of its budget.
A dozen other states are confronted with deficits equivalent to at least 15 per cent of their annual bottom line.
Rainy day funds have been tapped and the windfall of the multi-billion-dollar tobacco company lawsuit settlements of 1998,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], which were to have been paid out over 10 years or more, has also gone,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], sold by those states that needed the money immediately.
In California,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], for instance, a 22-year payout of $14 billion was sold for $4.9 billion to help meet the budget shortfall.
The obvious cuts have been made, from reductions in Medicaid, which pays for health care for the poor, to prison closures and a gutting of welfare services.
The crisis can be traced to the rollercoaster passage of the US economy. In the fat times of the 1990s, state governments cut their taxes by an estimated $45 billion a year. Since then, the lingering recession has caused an abrupt slowing of the usual income streams: a 3.2 per cent drop in sales tax revenue,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], 12.8 per cent from personal income tax and 21.5 per cent from corporate income tax.
So the battered women of Virginia Beach become a balance sheet item with a red line through it.
"I want to be innovative and creative, so we can continue to provide these services,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]," Mr Bryant said of his sponsorship initiative.
He doubts that it will get to the point of a poster that says "This case brought to you by."
"That (decision) would have to come from the court,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]," Mr Bryant said. "Maybe blazers with the logo on the pocket. Maybe we could hand out ballpoint pens to the victims saying 'We're here because these folks cared'."
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