We continue our series on the impact of state budget cuts, focusing today on Colorado, where there is a nearly $2 billion deficit right now. Proposed budget cuts would have an impact in many areas of the Rocky Mountain State. K-12 school funding would be cut 6% in the latest budget proposal; tax-credits would be rescinded; and there's even a "Twinkie Tax" on candy and soda sales. We're looking at one cut in particular: Medicaid funding. Even though it's not the biggest line item, it is hitting those Coloradans most in need.

Tim Everett, State House reporter for the Denver Post, is with us. Also joining us is Mitzi Moran, president and CEO of Sunrise Community Health, which is a community health center in Evans, Co. The center weathered a 14% funding decrease in the past year, most of it impacting their lower-income patients.

A case brought to the Georgia Supreme Court this Tuesday might decide whether Georgia can afford to levy the death penalty any more. Jamie Weis has been sitting in jail for four years waiting for a trial because the state can’t afford to give him adequate representation or his Sixth Amendment-guaranteed right to a "speedy and public trial." Yesterday, Jamie presented a pre-trial appeal — drop his charges, or at least the possibility of the death penalty. 

To find out more we spoke with Emily Green, a reporter covering the justice system for Georgia Public Broadcasting, and Robert McGlasson, an attorney at law who represented a previous death-penalty defendant in one of the most expensive cases in Georgia history. (You can read other stories in our "Deep Cuts" series on states' budget shortfalls.)

Hundreds gathered at Michigan’s state capitol in Lansing, Mich., yesterday to protest budget cuts to school programs. To help explain what's going on right now in Michigan, we're joined by Craig Fahle from WDET in Detroit, where he hosts the talk show “Detroit Today.” Also with us is Casey Christensen, a first-grade teacher in Roseville, Mich. It's part of our week-long series on the impact of state budget cuts.

We begin a new series on the impacts of state budget cuts around the country – governors and legislators are making deep cuts, with effects easily felt by residents. Maryland may cut $1 billion from its budget by the end of 2009. One of the proposed cuts affects a mental hospital in a rural community along the Chesapeake Bay; the governor says closing it would save $9 million. But residents worry there will be no safety net to catch its patients. We hear from reporter Melody Simmons, from our partner WEAA in Baltimore, as well as Tanya Rider, assistant director of nursing for the Upper Shore Community Mental Health Center.