Sales taxes today mainly hit sales of tangible goods like cars and couches. Faced with the worst budget crisis in a generation, many states are looking to expand sales taxes to services, such as lawn care or accountants' advice. The goal, legislators say, is to broaden the tax base to cover a broader swath of the economy as traditional sources of tax revenue decline. Although in early stages, service taxes are being considered by legislators around the country.

Gov. Rick Perry has asked the U.S. Department of Defense to deploy a Predator -- the unmanned aircraft used by the military both for gathering intelligence and carrying out missile strikes -- to help improve border security and provide "real-time" data. "The federal government has been an abject failure at sealing our international border," Perry said. Predators are now in use at the Arizona border for surveillance of drug and migrant smuggling.

Ohio's former public safety director blocked authorities from enforcing rules intended to crack down on fraudulent vehicle registrations, a state investigation has concluded. Henry Guzman, a former Cleveland administrator who resigned his state post in August, never explained why he held up the new rules for over a year, the report said.

After years without an open meetings challenge in Alabama courts, three lawsuits in six months have been filed against government agencies, claiming violations of the 2005 Open Meetings Act. The lawsuits are attributed to the fact that the Open Meetings Act is still relatively new and open to interpretation. Perry Roquemore, a lawyer and executive director of the Alabama League of Municipalities, said he thinks most governmental agencies try to follow the law.

If Gov. Bob Riley's anti-gambling task force tries to raid the Greenetrack bingo operations in Greene County, then the county's sheriff will be forced to "deputize" men in order to stop the raid, threatened state Sen. Bobby Singleton. The threat comes after task force commander John Tyson issued a warning to all casino and slot machine owners to get their machines out of the state immediately.

Wary of the expanded Toyota recall and still stinging from a recent decision by the Japanese automaker to close a major manufacturing plant in California, the state Assembly turned patriotic, adopting a “Buy American” policy for all future vehicles bought for its fleet. The "Buy America" policy had been in place for all state Assembly vehicle purchases before 2003, when lawmakers dropped it so they could buy more environmentally friendly foreign-made hybrids.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has resurrected an idea to convert overhead freeway displays into electronic advertising billboards. Under the plan, a billboard company would replace existing digital displays that show abduction-related Amber Alerts and traffic updates with sophisticated color screens that also show advertising. The state currently operates 708 electronic boards on highways. The proposal faces significant hurdles, particularly obtaining a U.S. Department of Transportation waiver of federal highway regulations.

President Obama told a group of 11 governors -- including those from coal-friendly states -- that the United States must move aggressively toward a clean energy economy. In a meeting at the White House, Obama called for a series of steps to produce energy in more environmentally friendly ways, including a sharp increase in the production of ethanol and other biofuels and new technology that can store harmful carbon gases that now are emitted into the atmosphere when coal is burned.

With a U.S. Supreme Court decision looming on the disputed "honest services" fraud law, federal prosecutors Thursday revised their indictment against former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, restructuring the charges without altering the specific allegations against him. Prosecutors added eight counts that mirror other charges in the indictment but that don't rely on honest services fraud. That way, if the Supreme Court limits or tosses the controversial law, prosecutors can simply drop those counts and proceed to trial as scheduled on June 3.

State officials staring at holes in the budget this time of year generally have had a trusty cushion to fall back on: a mattress stuffed full of Wall Street bonus money. But the state's Budget Division said that while the state had expected to collect $1 billion to $1.5 billion in taxes on Wall Street pay, tax revenue was actually about $1 billion shy of what had been projected.