Blue States Earn ‘F’ on Fiscal Health Report Card
by Warner Todd Huston
Americans elect and re-elect debt-ridden incompetency…
Nine Democrat-controlled states have earned “F” grades on the new 2018 Financial State of the States report.
The worst of the worst include New Jersey, Connecticut, and Illinois.
Government watchdog group Truth in Accounting just released its ninth annual Financial State of the States report grading each state on its financial policies and stability.
According to the group’s website: the report is “a nationwide analysis of the most recent state government financial information. This comprehensive analysis of the 50 states’ finances includes the most up-to-date state finance and pension data, trends across the states, and key findings.”
Unfortunately, nearly half of America’s states are in serious financial trouble.
This year, the study found that 40 states do not have enough money to pay all of their bills and in total the states have racked up over $1.5 trillion dollars in unfunded state debt.
The study ranks the states according to their Taxpayer Burden or Surplus™, which is * each taxpayer’s share of state bills * after available assets have been tapped. Check out the data for your state at the State Data Lab.
Of the worst of the worst, the bottom ten are all Democrat states but one. Of the ten, Kentucky is largely red now, but was recently quite blue and is in many ways a split state.
The bottom states include in descending order:
Vermont
New York
California
Delaware
Hawaii
Massachusetts
Kentucky
Illinois
Connecticut
New Jersey
On the other hand, the top ten states are nearly all controlled by the Republican Party.
The top ten, most financially secure states include:
Alaska
North Dakota
Wyoming
Utah
South Dakota
Idaho
Tennessee
Nebraska
Oregon
Iowa
