The economy is causing problems across the country, but Virginia, in particular, is feeling the money crunch. Last week, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine announced that due to the dire financial situation he is laying off 570 state workers, closing some prisons and cutting funding for higher education.
 

If that wasn’t enough good news, he’s also going to be slashing $279 million from the state’s budget. That money’s got to come from somewhere, and we’re already going to be seeing dumber residents and more convicts on the street, so it doesn’t bode well.
 

In fact, Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher breaks down exactly where Virginians will be feeling those cuts. In many instances much deserved waste gets the axe, but in other areas the lack of funding won’t be pretty:

In the how-soon-they-forget category, the budget cuts slash $12.4 million from the state's aid to local Community Service Boards, the very same mental health providers that every single study following the Virginia Tech shootings said desperately needed more resources. It was just last December that Gov. Kaine announced he would seek to add 40 new clinicians to those same Community Service Boards, which he called one of "the state's most critical funding commitments." (In 2005, before the Virginia Tech shootings, community service boards saw 115,000 mentally ill people statewide, at a cost of $127 million.)

Did the shootings at Virginia Tech teach them nothing? The economy may be failing, but that tragedy should be a reminder that there are much worse things that could happen than money troubles, no matter how much money is at stake.