As with private employers, when state and local governments save money by moving services online, they actually shift some of those costs to the point of access: for many of those most likely to need jobs and benefits, this is the local library.
These declarations make federal aid available to make sure state and local responders have support they need as they work to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, as preparations and initial response efforts take place.
Chancellor George Osborne described CPI as a "more appropriate" measure of inflation - for state benefits and tax credits as well as public sector pensions - which would save the government money by producing smaller increases each year.
That - as I have written here before - when we decided that the state should save freemarket capitalism without anybody taking a serious loss, we simply transferred the losses to the state itself.
Walgreen and CVS took advantage of the crisis to convince a growing number of state regulators that pharmacists should be allowed to have the expanded role as a way to save lives and potentially money by getting more Americans flu shots from an army of pharmacists.