A line chart showing surpluses and deficits in state and local finances nationwide from first quarter 1952 through third quarter 2002. In 1952 the surplus was $14 billion. It ranged from the low teens to the low twenties throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. From 1964 through 1970, the surplus ranged in the high twenties and low thirties. It dropped to $16 billion in 1971, then rose sharply to $76 billion at the end of 1972. From that high, the surplus dropped to $1 billion in 1975, then rose to $48 billion in 1978. The surplus then declined steadily, until there was a $12 billion deficit in 1983. Between 1984 and 1986, the surplus moved up and down between $21 billion and $38 billion. In 1990 it dropped to $8 billion, and by 1991 there was an $18 billion deficit. For the next two years, finances ranged between single-digit surpluses and single-digit deficits, except for a brief spike to a $21 billion surplus in 1993. From 1994 through 1998 surpluses rose, reaching a high of $56 billion; they dropped to the thirties in 1999, then to the teens in 2000. By first quarter 2001 the deficit was $15 billion, and state and local finances have continued their decline, to a deficit of $47 billion by third quarter 2002.