According to the National Governors Association, the states could be as much as $80 billion short of cash this fiscal year (which ends next July) and more than $100 billion short next year. And that is out of a collective budget of $1.2 trillion in all the states.

To discuss this gathering catastrophe, the president-elect—former community organizer and state legislator—asked to meet with and hear the concerns of the nation's governors. As far as any one could tell, no president-elect had ever asked for such a meeting, at least not this early in his pre-presidency.

The chairman of the governors' group, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, is a proud Philly guy. So he set the closed-door meeting for Congress Hall, next door to Independence Hall. There, from 1790 to 1800, the new Congress met until the capital was moved to Washington, D.C.

The governors sat at desks in what used to be the House of Representatives, and talked with Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden in detail for nearly two hours in a closed-door session.

It was a polite but fairly grim session, I am told by participants. Obama was "regal, elegant and very gracious," said Republican Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina. But the numbers that prompted the meeting were so bleak that there was nothing to laugh about.

The governors made a three-part pitch that most (but not all) of them agreed on:

• Money for unemployment insurance and foods stamps for residents of their states. Both programs are paid directly by the federal government, though many states supplement the unemployment insurance with programs of their own.
• A commitment by the president to push to immediately spend $136 billion on infrastructure projects—roads, bridges, rail lines, sewage-treatment plants, you name it—that, according to Rendell, are "ready to go," in that they have received all of the bureaucratic approvals they need. "We can put shovels in the dirt within a few months if the money is voted on these immediately," said Rendell.
• A promise to funnel more money into Medicaid, the federal health-care program for the poor, which shares with the states the cost of paying for indigent care. It's a category that is growing, and that will mushroom, as the recession deepens.