The prospects for financing city governments are more than ever interwoven with the fiscal health and the fiscal attitude of state governments. State aid, state financial assumption, mandates and the division of revenue authority are all at the center of any present day discussion about the fiscal position of city governments. So, even though the focus of this forum is cities, I have chosen to comment on the public financing position of the state and local government sector. I think that three issues are relevant. The first is to understand what happened to state and local government finances in the last decade; the second is to speculate about whether there are some lessons that might be learned from this experience; and the third is to identify the likely major influences that will shape the financial health of state and local governments during the 1990s.