Also note:
Federal Funding per capita, state rankings (Wyoming, #1, Alaska #2, N. Dakota, #8 Montana, #12)

All rank very high in state gov’t spending per capita (Alaska #1, N. Dakota, #5, Wyoming #8). Per person, they spend A LOT! (and as noted above, much of that money comes from the Federal Gov’t).

But maybe they need that to pay for all the energy they use (Alaska, North Dakota, and Wyoming rank #1, 2, & 4 in per capita energy consumption).

In short, the Federal government is picking up a huge chunk of the tab for each of these states, all of whom spend a lot of money given their populations.

Alaska also has the advantage of that socialist revenue sharing thing known as the Alaska Permanent Fund (works well for them, maybe we should do it nationally?)

These are also the 4 states with the lowest population densities in the entire country, and 4 of the six lowest total populations as well. My guess is that this would play a role. Fewer people may translate to smaller, more efficient agencies, less paperwork, employees, etc.

Point being is that, overall, they actually spend quite a lot of money given their populations and all receive quite a lot of help from the government which comes directly from the pocketbooks of taxpayers in other states.

I note that two of the others have legislatures that only meet every other year, and the third limits is legislature to 90 days per year. I wonder how much that limits mischief-making among the local pols…

I would also suggest–particularly in California’s case–that this shows a weakness in the ballot-initiative system. California voters have brought themselves to this situation in many ways, ranging from Proposition 13 to the two-thirds vote requirement for any new tax legislation.

Arnie, for once, has no incentive to sign on to a tax increase (and there are still enough Republicans to stop one, provided we don’t have any more go “Quisling” on us).

And the Dems will never cut back social programs, nor will they scale back union benefits.

In short, there’s no legislative solution likely (or likely even possible!).

The only way out of this I see is some bottom-up ballot initiative that forces real spending cuts.

Otherwise, I really think the entire CA state gov’t may just collapse!

It would be worse for the Dem-controlled states on a Gross State Product or per-capita basis.

I’m very disappointed to see Louisiana ranking so high on that.