Anyone notice Blue states tend to me more fiscally responsible?

[TheRealJoeFish]

Here you go.  Now you can determine for yourself.  (Note California.)

https://www.mercatus.org/statefiscalrankings

Well, considering that the figures are highly influenced by the right wing lie that pensions are a drain on the coffers (which only happens if funding in is cut) I'm not too confident of their methodology.

But frankly the Mercatus Centre's methodology is going to be shit no matter what. They're Chicago/Austrian School, and all their research will work to the free market conclusion anyway.

I'll read the full doc later to see where else they've holes in their thinking.

Yeah, I thought I posted this yesterday from mobile but must've lost my connection.  Mercatus Institute is super-hard core free market craziness (they are *constantly* lobbying the White House to remove *every* economic regulation).  They're essentially ranking the states by a handful of indicators, blended together in an opaque way, that is really answering the question: "when the whole system blows up for not being free market enough - and it will... it's only a matter of time - how badly will this particular state explode?"  Tazzy's correct - to take pension liabilities and stack them up as present debts is not a clear picture of economic burden.

Now, it's clear that some smaller states - ND, SD, Alaska, etc - have lots and lots of cash on hand.  They also have tiny little economies.  Big states have much much less cash on hand and big honking economies.  These things go hand in hand.

[Autumnlicious]

That's because debt can be traded, held as collateral or resold provided ones finances are held in high repute.

Why use cash when you can leverage money-eating debt to do more work?

The circumstances where this system falls apart is in a catastrophic economic crisis and even then lenders often grant additional leeway to former best performer in hopes it is a temporary event and they will be able to rake interest payments.

Cash on hand, OTOH, trusts that the value of the currency will maintain itself against local low performing economic conditions. It falls apart spectacularly when the larger debt-based economies that support the same currency crash.

One can stand more on it's own merit (debt based) while the other parasitizes the national currency as a guard against poor performance.

[TaraJo]

You're a bit off topic. The conversation is/was about states. 

Do you have a comment on how blue states are fiscally more responsible than red? 

Fair enough.

All that government spending, I don't like to think of it all as spending; I prefer to think of it as investing.  The difference is, investing pays off in the long run.  I posted an article about it a while back in this forum.  The state of Utah had a new solution to homelessness: give apartments to the homeless.  Sure enough, homelessness is basically gone from the state and the state is spending less on this housing program than it spent dealing with the homeless.  They actually saved money here.  Saving money is fiscal responsibility.

And that isn't really the only way these investments pay off.  Investing in schools pay off with a better educated population and a better trained workforce.  Investing in roads makes transportation easier.  Investments in police and firefighters give us safer communities.  And, let's face it, poverty turns into crime, so investing in poverty reduction efforts also pays off in that we have less crime.

On the other hand, look at how Republicans love to spend money.  They give tax incentives to billionaires, which they, in turn, dump into off-shore accounts, safely away from both our tax codes and the rest of our economy.  Or they spend their money making the kind of risky investments that crashed the economy in 2008.  I know, their economic ideology says that if you give "job creators" money, they'll use that money to create jobs.  The problem most businesses have isn't taxation; they just don't have the customers.  Build a middle class, build demand for the services and products that businesses sell and you'll do a much better at creating jobs than throwing money at CEO's.  

Cliff notes:  Republican investments don't work.  Democrat investments do.  Or did, but that's another issue.

[brewer]

Fair enough.

All that government spending, I don't like to think of it all as spending; I prefer to think of it as investing.  The difference is, investing pays off in the long run.  I posted an article about it a while back in this forum.  The state of Utah had a new solution to homelessness: give apartments to the homeless.  Sure enough, homelessness is basically gone from the state and the state is spending less on this housing program than it spent dealing with the homeless.  They actually saved money here.  Saving money is fiscal responsibility.

And that isn't really the only way these investments pay off.  Investing in schools pay off with a better educated population and a better trained workforce.  Investing in roads makes transportation easier.  Investments in police and firefighters give us safer communities.  And, let's face it, poverty turns into crime, so investing in poverty reduction efforts also pays off in that we have less crime.

On the other hand, look at how Republicans love to spend money.  They give tax incentives to billionaires, which they, in turn, dump into off-shore accounts, safely away from both our tax codes and the rest of our economy.  Or they spend their money making the kind of risky investments that crashed the economy in 2008.  I know, their economic ideology says that if you give "job creators" money, they'll use that money to create jobs.  The problem most businesses have isn't taxation; they just don't have the customers.  Build a middle class, build demand for the services and products that businesses sell and you'll do a much better at creating jobs than throwing money at CEO's.  

Cliff notes:  Republican investments don't work.  Democrat investments do.  Or did, but that's another issue.

Utah is a red state and republican/conservative almost completely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_...th_in_Utah
Why are you giving the blues credit?

As far as I can tell you are talking conservative values, whether red/blue, dem/pub. . You just seem to have a hardon for big business and the wealthy. There are many wealthy dems also. It appears that Dems support offshore banking (quick google search)

[John V]

Was bored this evening and decided to look at the debt by U.S. state and I noticed something. Red states spend more than they make in revenue and Blue states it's just the other way around.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/index.html

The top left there's an option to view state debt

I just clicked on the states. Top states in debt per citizen were (in order): NY, MA, WA, IL, CA, RI, NJ

I don't know what you were looking at , but it seems that that source shows just the opposite of what you claim.

[Autumnlicious]

Debt is not a negative measure by itself.

Increasing debt and decreasing revenue is a negative indicator.

Not debt itself.

I know, very hard concept... /s

You do know that State level economies cannot be modeled by your chinsy little checkbook, right?