Missouri a laggard? Not when ranking its fiscal condition..... (California: sales, leases)

[MUTGR]

State Fiscal Condition: Ranking the 50 States | Mercatus

[nealrm]

It should be noted that 13 of the 15 best states for fiscal condition are red states, while 13 of 15 of the worst were blue staes in 2012.

[STLviaMSP]

Who cares when it doesn't correspond to individual prosperity?

Using the fiscal condition of the state as a proxy for how well the people in the state are doing is kind of meaningless.

[MUTGR]

Originally Posted by STLviaMSP

Who cares when it doesn't correspond to individual prosperity?

Using the fiscal condition of the state as a proxy for how well the people in the state are doing is kind of meaningless.

Of course no one is doing that, but I can understand why you would want to change the subject.

[STLviaMSP]

I don't want to change the subject. If the fiscal condition of the state doesn't reflect the well-being of the people in the state, then what is the point of calling it out and comparing to other states? It isn't like health, or income adjusted for region, or poverty adjusted for region, or educational attainment, or numerous other metrics that speak tangibly to the welfare of the inhabitants of a particular state. For example, a corporation that doesn't invest in maintaining its competitive edge can also have a balanced budget, but if it isn't working to achieve growth in sales and/or market share, talent acquisition and retention, and developing patents, for instance, then a balanced budget is quite meaningless.

[nealrm]

The report is on the financial condition of the state, that means it will be able to continue providing services at it current level. If the state was not healthy, then something will change. Either revenues will increase, service will decrease or some combination of both. Stating that a balanced budget is meaningless is a fools comment. It's like living the high life on credit cards, at some point it's going to come crashing down.

You also need to read the complete report, especially the portion of the rating that deal with having "resources to provide their residents with an adequate level of services".

[MUTGR]

Originally Posted by STLviaMSP

I don't want to change the subject. If the fiscal condition of the state doesn't reflect the well-being of the people in the state, then what is the point of calling it out and comparing to other states? It isn't like health, or income adjusted for region, or poverty adjusted for region, or educational attainment, or numerous other metrics that speak tangibly to the welfare of the inhabitants of a particular state. For example, a corporation that doesn't invest in maintaining its competitive edge can also have a balanced budget, but if it isn't working to achieve growth in sales and/or market share, talent acquisition and retention, and developing patents, for instance, then a balanced budget is quite meaningless.

The point is some states are in much better fiscal shape than others and it has real world consequences, both in the present and in the future. In the present, being in poor fiscal shape impacts a states credit rating and therefore its costs of borrowing to fund spending now. Ask Illinois about this. In the future, debt eventually has to be repaid and likely at much higher interest rates than currently, which will likely severely limit the ability of states in poor fiscal condition to respond to needs in the future.

Compare Missouri and Illinois and tell me Illinois citizens today are better off than Missouri citizens because of Illinois' irresponsible spending. Let me help you: they aren't.

[SW Missouri Dave]

HDI Map

More statistics that might be relevant.

[marigolds6]

The red state/blue state dichotomy is not surprising consider the long-run and service-level solvency measure. Both measures are a proxy for how much of a state's funding comes from the federal government; the more rural and the older the age structure of a state, the better it will do on those two measures, and that is half of the overall index.

Budget solvency is by far the best measure of the current fiscal management of the state itself, even though it should still correlate strongly with the rural/urban balance of the state.

When you look at that measure, you have a 5/10 blue-state/red state split for the top 15, and a 9/6 blue-state/red-state split for the bottom 15. (And unfortunately, Missouri does pretty poorly in that category, which is unsurprising when you consider how little revenue state government brings in here.)

[pacificwhim]

Sigh. Why do some people insist on making everything political? But since you're going there, let's break down the top states. The top 5 (along with Montana, #9) are the most sparsely populated states in the country, which translates to much lower demand for services than a state like, say, Massachusetts. Alaska, rated #1, gets a massive cash influx from oil leases, making it hardly representative of any other state, red or blue.

Then, let's look at states like Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina, which outrank states like New York, Illinois and California here. These states consistently rank at the bottom in quality of life measures like life expectancy, infant mortality, literacy and teen pregnancy. Are you really going to claim that a balanced state budget or strong cash reserves equates to a higher quality of life in these states? It would seem to indicate the opposite.