Alabama at the Crossroads: An Economic Guide to a Fiscally Sustainable Future

Abstract

Alabama has been traveling down a fiscally unsustainable road. The burden of unchecked fiscal irresponsibility will ultimately fall on taxpayers, making Alabama an unattractive location for residency or business. This path has led Alabama to a crossroads, one where the choice is to continue down the same unsustainable path or to take the alternative road of fiscal and economic reform. Through reform, Alabama can set itself on the road to economic freedom and prosperity, thereby making the state an attractive location for entrepreneurship, investment, and job creation. This study analyzes the road Alabama has been traveling and the crossroads it has brought Alabama to today, and offers reforms that would put the state on an alternative path toward prosperity-enhancing economic freedom and limited government. Those changes include budget, tax, public-sector pension, constitutional, and regulatory reforms.