States' Fiscal Condition

[ENT Doc]

New edition of the Mercatus Center's rankings of each state's fiscal condition and seeing how they compare:

https://www.mercatus.org/statefiscalrankings

The unfunded pension liabilities are scary, even under the rosy discount rate assumptions.  Plan accordingly.

[jfoxcpacfp]

Whoo-hoo, Kentucky made the bottom cut!

[Hatton]

Alabama is above average. Hard for me to believe

[FIREshrink]

Very suspect data. Oregon moved up based on cash solvency despite facing a multibillion dollar budget shortfall which forced contemplation of cutting what is already the shortest school year in the country. Washington moved down based on budget despite having record revenues, population growth, and job growth and a new budget 20% greater than that of the last biennium.

That said, I tried to dissuade a doctor friend from moving to Illinois, under any circumstances, but was unsuccessful. That state is a train wreck.

[ENT Doc]

A few things about the Oregon and Washington info.  When did these changes occur that you speak of?  These rankings are reflective of past data, not anything that may have just happened.  Also, these are rankings, not a statement of absolute fiscal health.  Since they are relative, WA's revenues just may have not been as good as others, for example.

[DoubleMDs]

Coincidence that this looks very similar to the state breakdown of the electoral map in voting? Orange=blue states and green=red states. Maybe just coincidence, but I think not.

[jz]

Last week my surgeon husband received reimbursement from IL Medicaid for three cases. $0 + $0 +$ 0 = $0.  I'm pleased to see we are taking our fiscal responsibilities seriously. / sarc.

[ajm184]

@ Fireshrink-  You unfortunately are being too generous of your assessment of Illinois being a 'train wreck'.  I have absolutely no idea how NJ beat Illinois out as the most deadbeat state.  I am also somewhat surprised at how well California is doing fiscally.  I guess the whole stock market gains have helped keep California afloat with all the unicorns/VC companies.

@JZ-  I hope you and your husband are not practicing near Springfield, must be a nightmare for the physicians in that area with the concentration of state workers relative to other patient pools.  Also, I would suggest getting with your biller.  I think the $0 reflects the non-payment be the State, rather than non acceptance by the State of a valid claim.  Basically, the bill is one of the $14 Billion in unpaid claims.  The issue of course is that I imagine your husbands percentage of Medicaid is low, therefore you are even further in the back of the line.  My wife saw several State of Illinois workers in September 2013, got actually paid in July 2016.

[pistolpete]

I was surprised to see Florida so high and California so low!

[Craigy]

************************, Louisiana worse than California.

That's what we get for being home of the good-ol-boy retirement packages for state employees.

And then it's difficult to shake the state's Edwin Edwards legacy of corruption.

[Craigy]

pistolpete wrote:

I was surprised to see Florida so high and California so low!

Click to expand...

Rich people move to Florida.

They move from California and many others.  

[StarTrekDoc]

Florida is a nice thing to see as they have a relatively stable state budget and overall fiscally conservative in nature.  It doesn't overspend nor overpromise on general commitments and each project usually establishes a funding mechanism.

California - we just tax and spend.  It's refreshing to have Brown hold the line over the years without torching the place.  The CalPers commitments though is why it's sucking the bottom rung despite everything.

 

Then again, FL has no tort reform.

[ENT Doc]

Heard an interesting discussion today on Bloomberg as it relates to state fiscal health and tuition inflation.  Tuition inflation has been on the decline (not deflation) and some of this was tied to preferential choice of state schools over private in the setting of improved state fiscal health since 2009.  My take on that was that when all these unfunded liabilities are forced to be dealt with those students in state schools in states with poor balance sheets will face worsening pain in the future.  Or they could scheme like CA schools did to admit more out of staters and international students unfairly so they could be charged a higher rate.

[Gas_Doc]

Market value of California's unfunded pension liability: $925.69 billion.  Good lord...

[CM]

Crixus wrote:

Disgusting. Utterly disgusting when you peruse these salaries.

Click to expand...

That was eye-opening.