A new study in the United States is suggesting state governments are carrying both total and future liabilities in the range of between 1 to 4 trillion US dollars.

 

　　The Harvard Institute of Government report suggets the debt at the state level is a result of pension and health care programs for government workers.

 

　　These future liabilities are in addition to the money that individual state governments may have already borrowed.

 

　　US policy makers are now being confronted with the challenge of trying to reduce the debt loads without causing any drastic consequences for people's lives.

 

　　For more on this situation, CRI's Nathan Wakelin-King spoke with Professor Geoffrey Garet, founder of the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.