New Jersey faces revenue gaps estimated at up to $1.2 billion next year.
The revenue gap is an authentic problem getting worse.
The owners are using the revenue gap to try to force a salary cap on players.
Two weeks ago, Whitmire announced there would be a $10.7 million revenue gap and ordered all city departments to cut their budgets.
But without the plan, the budget faced a large revenue gap that has had legislators scrambling to find alternatives.
Among the ideas on the table to close any revenue gap is a plan to steer show-week events into the grill.
In most states, an emergency like that would lead to action, even if it were just a clumsy attempt to paper over the revenue gaps.
In addition, state officials would need Congressional approval to use some federal aid to plug general revenue gaps.
Standard & Poor's recently said the state had done well covering revenue gaps to date, drawing on those depleted reserves.
They said that the continuing erosion of sales tax collections, in particular, had widened the revenue gap that the budget will have to make up.