State budget crises ebb.

State budgets are healthier than they've been in five years thanks to improving revenues and careful balancing of priorities by state legislators across the country, according to State Budget & Tax Actions 2005: Preliminary Report, released at NCSL's Annual Meeting.

The 46 states that responded to NCSL's budget survey ended fiscal year 2005 with an aggregate balance of $35.7 billion--an 8 percent increase from FY 2004. Wall Street analysts recommend a balance of at least 5 percent. States ended FY 2005 with 7 percent. That's almost twice what they projected. No state ended FY 2005 with a deficit.

Legislative fiscal directors are projecting to end FY 2006 in the black as well--with an aggregate balance of 4.7 percent. At the same time...