There is, of course, a further downside to federal tax cuts. Because state and local individual and corporate income taxes are "piggy-backed" on the federal system, federal tax cuts can have the effect of undercutting or preempting state and local tax revenues. Because these levels of government are a) more affected by the current recession, b) required, unlike the federal government, to balance their budgets, and c) critical to the national economy; any such federal cuts could not just do harm at the state and local level--forcing higher taxes or more job losses--but also further increase the already prohibitive cost of access to the state and local credit markets, the single most critical source of financing for American infrastructure.