Those being the four states that are not running a deficit right now. The relative sizes of the rest can be seen via this handy visual tool:

Via @MelissaTweets

I’d make more commentary on this, except that I can sum it up as stop spending money you don’t have, you idiots. And that is one of those binary things: people either already get that, or they don’t. Either way, there’s not much point for follow-up material. I will note, though, that the ‘top’ five deficit-ridden states (who make up 52% of the total deficit, interestingly enough) have one thing in common: their state legislatures are all dominated by Democratic politicians*.

Yes. Shocking.

Moe Lane

*With the sort-of exception of New York’s; their State Assembly is run by Democrats, and their Senate is currently being run by nobody at all…

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Faced with a shortage of funds this year and unwilling to cut the bloated state budget, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is planning to welsh on the state’s debt to taxpayers who overpaid in 2008 and to put a hold on paychecks owed to state employees until the Republican-controlled state legislature allows her to break state law by borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars from already  bankrupt state funds.

Breaking Borrowing Law

The Kansas Finance Council, which is made up of Sebelius and six state GOP leaders, is refusing to approve the Democratic Governor’s $225,000,000.00 borrowing plan because state law requires all such debts, called certificates of indebtedness, to be retired by the end of the fiscal year in which they were issued. Kansas’ fiscal year ends June 30, and the state has already taken out $550,000,000.00 in certificates that it likely won’t be able to repay. Approving the additional amount requested by Sebelius would push that debt total over three-quarters of a billion dollars with 4 1/2 months remaining to somehow find the money to  pay it off within the timeframe required by law.

“We cannot issue more certificates if the funds will not materialize by the end of the year,” said House Speaker Mike O’Neal (R) in a press release. “Without the revised 2009 budget bill, there is no way that we can legally issue a certificate knowing full well that the money will not be available to retire the debt.”

Governor Turns Up Nose at Real Alternatives

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