MuniLand

An excellent map from Governing showing current state laws for mandatory school attendence. President Obama highlighted the issue of school attendance until 18 years of age in his State of The Union speech but 40% of states already have these laws.

+Good Links+

Council of State Governments: What was in the State of the Union for the states?

Bloomberg: U.S. state tax revenue exceeds pre-recession level, Rockefeller study says

Blackrock: 119 municipal default filings in 2011

Pension and Investments: New Jersey pension funds return 1.7% on investments

Bond Buyer:  The rally was off now the rally is on again in muniland

State of Louisiana: Governor Jindal Announces Pension Reform Plan

Innovation Trails: Cuomo’s transparency website fails to live up to promises

GovTech: Rochester, Minn. will use “identity analytics” to try and reduce crime

@Twitter Talk

@SenatorSanders Bernie Sanders  More than 5 million seniors face the threat of hunger and almost 3 million seniors are at risk of going hungry. sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/…

@BloombergGov Bloomberg Government  In 2010, 33% of U.S. bridges were at least 50 years old, up from 28% in 2005.

@AlexiMostrous Alexi Mostrous  Some amazing facts about American prisons (fromnyr.kr/wiKKee).  1) Texas sentenced more than 400 teenagers to life imprisonment

@PensionDialog Pension Dialog  Discussions in CA: “A hybrid does not necessarily produce any more cost savings than any other plan”  bit.ly/x4BBDa

@CorbinHiar Corbin Hiar  The 40,000 comments New Yorkers submitted to state regulators about fracking probably won’t matter much: bit.ly/A70XXa.

@virginieoshea Virginie O’Shea  Check out Sifma’s 10 page letter to US Treasury on the definition of issue pricing for the muni markets.  sifma.org/issues/item.as…

@StatesideAssoc Stateside Associates  MD @GovernorOMalley is pushing for a tax on all digital products, including phone apps.  bsun.md/AzgilD

@CapitalTonight Capital Tonight  Cuomo: “this is probably my favorite part of the year” when it comes to traveling the state. At least 200 events

planned.

@rachbarnhart Rachel Barnhart  The fact I’ve spent the last three hours trying to confirm if the state’s own press release is accurate…is definitely a blog post later.

@AtlanticCities The Atlantic Cities How we plowed before there were snow plows ow.ly/8HkHY