Brendan Riley at the Associated Press has the ball on a story that will make most intelligent legislative candidates question if they really want to win and thus be required to attend the 2009 session.

The bad news is that taxable sales were down 2.5% for fiscal year 2008 over fiscal year 2007.  The numbers for June showed a 6% drop over the previous year, the steepest decline since the economic slowdown began.