January is traditionally the time to put the past behind us, turn over a new leaf, and make plans for what’s to come. Many indicators show the country’s economy has been pumping on all cylinders this past year. Stocks are at record highs and the unemployment rate is at its lowest point in 17 years. Many would agree that the economy is moving in the right direction, which is excellent news.
Unfortunately, this optimistic news is somewhat undercut by worsening financial trajectories at the state government level from coast to coast. The nation is not in as good a shape as it seems.
Recently updated government financial disclosures show alarming levels of red ink on statehouse ledger books across the country. A 2017analysis shows $1.5 trillion in state debt, a 15 percent increase over the previous year and part of a long-term worsening trend. In the last year, only seven states reported improved financials, while three were unchanged, and 40 are on a troubling downward trajectory.
There is a significant variation in the fortunes of the 40 downward trending states, which include examples at both ends of the extreme, such as Alaska’s declining surplus and New Jersey’s skyrocketing $208 billion debt. However, when the data is taken as whole it is hard to understate the scale of the precarious fiscal situation at the state government level. Truth in Accounting, an organization I founded in 2002, analyzes the most recent Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports, and our data shows that the average state now carries a staggering $10,020 in debt for every one of its taxpayers.
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DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
3 comments:
More Alex Jones alarmist over reaction.
9:16...head in the sand much???
If YOU made $75,000 a year, but wrote checks for 38 million and PROMISED (in writing) that you would pay someone else 25 million every year, how would THAT work out for you? Someone would end up killing you.
Quit cheerleading for just a second.
Pensions, bonds, annuities, etc, are NOT going to get paid, sooner or later.
THAT is a fact and a very big unavoidable FACT.
If you have a solution, other than just believing "everything will be okay", please call the Statehouse or the White House because they are spending a lot of time trying to determine how to control the populace when they have to be informed that their pension (and their bank account, which has been confiscated) will no longer be coming, but the electric bill will.....
Your "leaders" have spent EVERY DOLLAR available to them for the next 25 years. You cheered.
You're going to be sorry about that. If not you, then surely your children.
A scheme like the one bankers have been running on "we, the people" would land any of "we, the people" in PRISON. For a VERY LONG TIME (i.e. Madoff).
THEY get a separate pension and trips around the world.
Better wake up.
the Young Turks did a segment on it. Said the same it's real.
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