In a Bad State

In a Bad State provides the first comprehensive history and theory of how the federal government has addressed subnational debt crises. Tracing the long history of public budgeting at the state and local level, David Schleicher argues that federal officials face a "trilemma" when a state or city nears default. But whether they demand state austerity, permit state defaults, or provide bailouts-and all have been tried-federal officials can only achieve two out of three goals, at best. Authoritative and accessible, this book is a guide to understanding the pressing problems that local, state, and federal officials currently face and the policy options they possess for responding.

David Schleicher is a Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He is an expert in local government law, federalism, land use, state and local finance, and urban development. His work has been published widely in academic journals, including the Yale Law Journal and the University of Chicago Law Review, as well as in popular outlets like The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Slate. He has been called "the most important thinker we have on the subject of local government" and "ingenious" by National Review, one of the "most interesting writers on land use" by Washington Monthly, "interesting" by The Nation, "clever" by The Economist, "neat" by Slate, and "great but old fashioned" by Vox. He is also the co-host of the podcast, "Digging a Hole: The Legal Theory Podcast."

Part I: Why Is It So Hard To Get Out of a Bad State? An Introduction to the Problem of State and Local Fiscal Crisis
Introduction: Why It Is So Hard to Get Out of a Bad State
Part II: When We've Been in a Bad State: The Theory and History of Federal Responses to State and Local Fiscal Crises
Chapter 1: What Has Already Been Said About Federal Responses to State and Local Budget Crises? What Has Been Left Out?
Chapter 2: State Debt Crises Through the 1840s
Chapter 3: The Dual Debt Crises of the Post-Civil War Period
Chapter 4: State and Local Debt Crises in The Twentieth Century
Chapter 5: The Great Recession and State and Local Fiscal Crises
Chapter 6: COVID-19, the CARES Act, the MLF, and the ARP
Part III: Tools for Getting Out of a Bad State
Chapter 7: Introduction to the Principles for Responding to State and Local Fiscal Crises
Chapter 8: Building Better Bailouts
Chapter 9: Building Better Defaults
Chapter 10: Building Better Forms of State and Local Austerity
Chapter 11: Resilience, or Building a Better Federal System
Part IV: The Conclusion, Or Why States Are Often Bad
Chapter 12: Why States Are Often Bad
Notes
Index