On a number of occasions I’ve noted that we here in the rational states lead the nation in a number of respects. We may, for instance, be godless, but somehow we also manage to have the lowest divorce rates and the lowest rates of births out of wedlock. But, being rational, I’m bound to admit it when we lead the pack from behind, as Connecticut does on a very important measure. We are the number one “sinkhole” state:
… California ranks as America’s 7th worst “Sinkhole State,” as the State Data Lab, a project of Truth in Accounting, calls them. It figures the taxpayer burden in each state by adding up the outstanding state debt, such as bonds, and the amounts that these states have promised to pay but haven’t funded yet, such as pensions and retiree healthcare benefits – the “unfunded liabilities.”
That these “unfunded liabilities” can bite viciously in all directions has been made clear by the municipal bankruptcies of Detroit, MI, Stockton, San Bernardino, Vallejo (all three in California), Jefferson County, AL, and others.
But taxpayers in six other states are far worse off in terms of these liabilities than we are in California. The taxpayer burdens in Connecticut and Illinois weigh over twice as much on each of their respective taxpayers as the burden in California. By comparison, the profligate state of California is practically a paragon of fiscal rectitude. So based on data by State Data Lab, here are the 10 worst “Sinkhole States”:
via Wolf Street
Read the article at the link, and you’ll see that we here in the Nutmeg State are not only number one, but we win (or should that be “lose”) going away.
How to explain our dismal record? Well, I don’t know, but that won’t stop me from conjecturing about some of the causes. Like many of the worst things that have happened in this fair land, I suspect bi-partisanship is the cause. Republicans don’t like to pay for things, as you may have noticed. Democrats believe in paying for things, in theory, but they’re quite shy about saying so in practice, and can’t get out of the defensive crouch they assume every time Republicans accuse them of wanting to raise taxes. Connecticut had, counting Lowell Weicker, Republican governors for 20 years before Malloy came along. Yes, Weicker gave us the income tax, but I don’t recall him using it to pay for things like pensions. In the face of gubernatorial resistance, the Democratic legislatures (Republicans have never had a majority, if I’m not mistaken) have made no attempt, if they were ever so inclined, to properly fund the pensions that the state promised to its workers. Why bother to do that if, when the shit hits the fan, you can just accuse those workers of being greedy and insist that they take a cut, like the present governor of Rhode Island (a purported Democrat) did to the workers there. Did someone say contracts? To borrow and distort a phrase from Leona Helmsley “contracts are for the big people”.
A prediction: When the day of reckoning comes, somehow we’ll find a way to make sure that certain pensions, for retired judges, legislators etc., come through unscathed. It will be the greedy run of the mill state workers that get the shaft.
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