State debts compared (Albany: income, taxes, cost)

[vision33r]

If we look at the state's with the highest debts, then look at their GDP, population, and then local debts from this link: https://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/comp...nding_2018bH0S

#1 CA has the highest debts, at $146bn followed by NY at $143bn

But CA has 2x population of NY, but NY shouldn't have almost the same amount of debts as CA.

The income of both states: CA is #1 at $2.8Trillion, NY is #2 at $1.6Trillion

So how could NY keep wasting money when it makes $1.2Trillion less than CA.

NJ ranks #4 in debts at $70bn but only has about 1/2 as many people as NY at 9bn. and makes $1trillion less than NY.

This all goes to show NY's spending is a major problem, we don't have the kind of natural disasters like CA has to deal with, we have a lot of infrastructure problems and so does CA but to be this much in debts having less than 1/2 the population of CA tells that we are spending more than CA on resources such as state government salaries or their entitlements and social services that don't contribute enough to taxes to pay off the state's debts. And quite possibly there are too many people not paying taxes and tax receipts not enough to pay down the debts.

[Astorian31]

The reason why NYS has such a high debt compared to CA is because we have an extremely generous Medicaid program. And I agree, it should be reformed. There is too much fraud and abuse with the state’s Medicaid program. Especially concerning immigrants. All legal residents (green card holders) are supposed to be barred for a minimum of 5 years before they can begin receiving any government benefits. NYS does not care, and will give any legal resident Medicaid as long as they meet the income requirements. The burden of proof for income is also ridiculously low. as a result, there is massive fraud in the system and it needs to resolved.

We also have a large public transportation network and that also contributes to our higher than average debt. We spend more on transportation than California does, despite California having twice the population. That is not a bad. NYC is unique in that it actually provides a viable public transportation network, unlike car centric California. The problem is that we don’t have a lock box on funds dedicated to public transportation. The state routinely robs the MTA to pay for pet projects, causing the MTA to take on even more debt to keep the system running

In sum, the state is in desperate need of Medicaid reform, and a lock box for transportation taxes.

[vision33r]

When I saw the stats, suddenly CA doesn't look so bad compared to us. Their debt situation is still bad but they can fix it quicker than NY since they gross over $1 Trillion more than NY they can easily close a few more loopholes to get tax receipts up to draw another $100bn in 5 years easily.

NY is spending way too much more than the tax receipts can handle.

Subway improvements will cost another $100bn, I don't know how Albany is going to extract that without incurring more debts and not scare residents away with higher property and use taxes. The new tax reform is already putting SALT deductions at a limit.

[Aquarius37]

I <3 that the city salters are so salty! Payback's a *****!

[nybklyn]

Blame the people in Albany for diverting funds from public transportation to something else that most people dont have a clue about. This is pathetic, but I am not surprise.