The Rockefeller Institute is out with a report this morning that throws cold water on the winter optimism.

FORBES: The Still Shrinking Local Governments

Nathan, director of the Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, N.

FORBES: Watch the States

According to the Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York in Albany, the adjusted real increase was just over 2% in the past six months (see chart 2).

ECONOMIST: State budgets

Donald Boyd of the Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York, found that in the recessions of the early 1980s and 1990s state tax revenues declined at about the same rate as the national economy.

ECONOMIST: State fiscal crises may deepen America's downturn

The third quarter of 2011 marks the seventh consecutive quarter of revenue increases, according to Rockefeller Institute (in the fiscal year through June 2011, states posted their strongest revenue growth figures since 2005), though local government tax revenues are weak due to heavy dependence on property taxes.

FORBES: Behind Those Scary Municipal Bond Headlines

Start an institute like Rockefeller University in New York or the Salk Institute in San Diego, he told him, and bring the best minds of science there.

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