Travelling through the town of Woodland, California, my wife picked up the local paper during a Starbucks coffee stop. Per this article, that local county's deficit is currently at $22 million, but they could only come up with a plan to cut $1.5 million. Some other tentative (but unexplained) expenditure reductions might bring the deficit about 20% downward. So they have come with a plan that will only save $2 out of $10 dollars in the red. There's not a peep about actual debt reduction of any kind.

This is not a good sign. This means that things are not going to get any better sooner or that the necessary political decisions are being made for an easier transition to fiscal reality. The rest of the paper had various articles about different local agencies lobbying for federal handouts - again there appears to be no other plan to adjust expenditures to true means.