Policies have to be adjusted to the overall economic situation.

To really judge how a state is doing, you would have to look at a ton of statistics--and then see how government policies are/are not affecting them. No one in these forums is going to do that. And, when you start appealing to liberal or conservative sources, you're going to get the expected results. Really. I can post right-wing sources that will convince you as much as your ridiculously liberal sources convince me. How about some Heritage Foundation studies? Something from Club for Growth

rickyp wrote:Fate

Policies have to be adjusted to the overall economic situation.

Is that what happened in Kansas and Louisiana? And how'd that work out?

Fate

To really judge how a state is doing, you would have to look at a ton of statistics--and then see how government policies are/are not affecting them. No one in these forums is going to do that. And, when you start appealing to liberal or conservative sources, you're going to get the expected results. Really. I can post right-wing sources that will convince you as much as your ridiculously liberal sources convince me. How about some Heritage Foundation studies? Something from Club for Growth

Actually everyone else has attempted to produce evidence. Even you, though all you had was debt per capita to offer.

You can produce any evidence you like to buttress your argument. If they are subsequently shown to be faulty thats on you for choosing the source. From what I've seen mostly comments have used sources that referenced official government statistics. While there can be a different interpretation of the collection of statistics, the numbers are what they are...
In Kansas and Louisiana, which have been laboratories for the Ted Cruz version of very limited government and severely reduced taxation the results have been dismal so far....

After all, all we've seen here is liberal studies, which shockingly picked indices that show liberalism succeeds.

danivon wrote:So DF, your last two posts are:

"la la la la I can't hear you, and look how bad communism is"

and

"having said I won't produce anything to back me up, I will now pre-emptively rule out anything anyone presents in support of the thesis on Kansas and Louisiana because it will use "liberal" indices"

How about you just not bother posting, if it's going to just be about how you don't want to engage?

The fiscal year began July 1, but the Republican governor and the state’s Democratic lawmakers have remained deadlocked. Mr. Rauner, elected in 2014 as a reformer by voters fed up with seeing their state underwater, wants to balance the budget and reform the disastrous public-pension system. No way, say Democrats, who have a stranglehold on the state legislature, and who insist on tax increases.

Meanwhile, residents are feeling the pinch. Illinois is paying for services on a case-by-case basis, often by court order or federal consent decree, supervised by the state comptroller. Lottery winners cannot collect more than $600 each. The Department of Motor Vehicles will not mail license-plate renewal notices. The legislature is passing piecemeal bills to fund 911 call centers and putting off payments for public transit, health care and education. At the end of last year, according to the Illinois comptroller, the state’s unpaid bills totaled $8.5 billion. Nothing has shut down, but the longer the stalemate goes on the more those of us who live here worry about losing the services we rely on.

Illinois’s budgetary woes are legendary. As of January 2014, the state had amassed debt of $321.4 billion, or $24,959 per capita, according to State Budget Solutions and the Heartland Institute. About a third of that was unfunded future pensions—in other words, not counting benefits being paid to retirees today. Illinois hasn’t balanced its budget since 2001.

Revenue isn’t the problem. An October report from the Pew Charitable Trusts found that Illinois’s tax collections have grown by almost 20% since 2008, largely thanks to a short-term income-tax hike of two percentage points that expired this year.

But what the state has taken in, it has spent with reckless abandon. The $8.5 billion in unpaid bills at the end of 2015 nicely matches the $8.5 billion in unpaid bills the state had at the end of 2011, when then-Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, instituted the tax increase. The theory was that this would rescue Illinois and give it time to renounce bad habits. That didn’t work.

But these numbers seem to make no difference to the Democrats who hold a three-fifths majority in the legislature—veto-proof, in theory. Democrats approved a budget in May that would have spent $4 billion more than the state’s revenue. Mr. Rauner, citing a provision in the state constitution requiring a balanced budget, vetoed it. Democrats tried to override, but some defected, afraid that voting for another tax increase would hurt them in November’s elections. http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-man-sto ... 1454715881

The successful management of a state is difficult to measure. Factors that affect its finances and population may be the result of decisions made years ago. A state’s difficulties can be caused by poor governance or by external factors, such as extreme weather.

A state with abundant natural resources should have an easier time balancing its budget than one starved for resources. Regional problems or the national decline of certain industries can destroy local economies. The subprime mortgage crisis, for example, disproportionately affected states with strong construction and real estate markets. Such factors can be easily identified and noted as possible causes for a state’s poverty levels, unemployment, or strained coffers.

Despite this, it is the responsibility of each state to deal with the resources at its disposal. Each government must anticipate economic shifts and diversify its industries and attract new business. A state should be able to raise enough revenue to ensure the safety of its citizens and minimize hardship without spending more than it can prudently afford. Some states have historically done this much better than others.

To determine how well the states are run, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed hundreds of data sets from dozens of sources. We looked at each state’s debt, revenue, expenditure and deficit to determine how well it is managed fiscally. We reviewed taxes, exports, and GDP growth, including a breakdown by sector, to identify how each state is managing its resources. We looked at poverty, income, unemployment, high school graduation, violent crime and foreclosure rates to measure if residents are prospering.



Read more: The Best and Worst Run States in America: A Survey of All 50 - 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/special-report/201 ... z43vi8Xq5Y
Follow us: @247wallst on Twitter | 247wallst on Facebook

Doctor Fate wrote:Here's a study that is more comprehensive than any you guys have posted:

The successful management of a state is difficult to measure. Factors that affect its finances and population may be the result of decisions made years ago. A state’s difficulties can be caused by poor governance or by external factors, such as extreme weather.

A state with abundant natural resources should have an easier time balancing its budget than one starved for resources. Regional problems or the national decline of certain industries can destroy local economies. The subprime mortgage crisis, for example, disproportionately affected states with strong construction and real estate markets. Such factors can be easily identified and noted as possible causes for a state’s poverty levels, unemployment, or strained coffers.

Despite this, it is the responsibility of each state to deal with the resources at its disposal. Each government must anticipate economic shifts and diversify its industries and attract new business. A state should be able to raise enough revenue to ensure the safety of its citizens and minimize hardship without spending more than it can prudently afford. Some states have historically done this much better than others.

To determine how well the states are run, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed hundreds of data sets from dozens of sources. We looked at each state’s debt, revenue, expenditure and deficit to determine how well it is managed fiscally. We reviewed taxes, exports, and GDP growth, including a breakdown by sector, to identify how each state is managing its resources. We looked at poverty, income, unemployment, high school graduation, violent crime and foreclosure rates to measure if residents are prospering.



Read more: The Best and Worst Run States in America: A Survey of All 50 - 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/special-report/201 ... z43vi8Xq5Y
Follow us: @247wallst on Twitter | 247wallst on Facebook

The results? Slightly different than liberals might hope:

1. North Dakota
2. Wyoming
3. Nebraska
4. Utah
5. Iowa
6. Alaska
7. South Dakota
8. Vermont
9. Virginia (at the time under GOP governance)
10. Minnesota

So, liberals had /10.

Bottom 3 in the country????

48. Illinois
49. Rhode Island
50. California

http://247wallst.com/special-report/201 ... -all-50/6/

Have a nice day.

1. North Dakota
> Debt per capita: $3,282 (22nd lowest)
> Budget deficit: None
> Unemployment: 3.5% (the lowest)
> Median household income: $51,704 (20th highest)
> Pct. below poverty line: 12.2% (13th lowest)

For the first time, North Dakota ranks as the best run state in the country. In recent years, North Dakota’s oil boom has transformed its economy. Last year, crude oil production rose 35%. As of August, 2012, it was the second-largest oil producer in the country. This was due to the use of hydraulic fracturing in the state’s Bakken shale formation. The oil and gas boom brought jobs to North Dakota, which had the nation’s lowest unemployment rate in 2011 at 3.5%, and economic growth. Between 2010 and 2011, North Dakota’s GDP jumped 7.6%, by far the largest increase in the nation. This growth has also increased home values, which rose a nation-leading 29% between 2006 and 2011. North Dakota and Montana are the only two states that have not reported a budget shortfall since fiscal 2009.

2. Wyoming
> Debt per capita: $2,694 (18th lowest)
> Budget deficit: 10.3% (32nd largest)
> Unemployment: 6.0% (7th lowest)
> Median household income: $56,322 (13th highest)
> Pct. below poverty line: 11.3% (6th lowest)

Wyoming is not the best-run state in the nation this year. The drop is largely due to the state’s contracting economy. In 2011, GDP shrunk by 1.2%, more than any other state. As a whole, however, the state is a model of good management and a prospering population. The state is particularly efficient at managing its debt, owing the equivalent of just 20.4% of annual revenue in fiscal 2010. Wyoming also has a tax structure that, according to the Tax Foundation, is the nation’s most-favorable for businesses — it does not have any corporate income taxes. The state has experienced an energy boom in recent years. The mining industry, which includes oil and gas extracting, accounted for 29.4% of the state’s GDP in 2011 alone, more than in any other state. As of last year, Wyoming’s poverty, home foreclosure, and unemployment rates were all among the lowest in the nation.

danivon wrote:Another natural resource boom, but still they slip to second despite seeing the largest GDP slump in the nation.

So they controlled well for that then!

By the way, the survey is run annually, so perhaps you could have referenced this one instead, published in late 2015.

http://247wallst.com/special-report/201 ... ll-50-4/2/

freeman3 wrote:The difference between Business Insider and Wall St.com is that we really have no idea of how Wall St came up with their rankings. Oh yes, they said they looked at a bunch of different stuff. But Business Insider used 7 criteria to come up with their rankings--unemployment rate, percent change in non-farm jobs, GDP per capita, q2 GPD growth, changes in housing prices, weekly average wage, changes in average wage. Z-scores were taken (states scores are totaled for each category, the average score is found, and then each state is assigned a score based on their standard deviation from the mean). Then each state's z-score for each category is added to give a total score. States are ranked by their total score for the 7 categories.

http://www.businessinsider.com/state-ec ... ods-2016-1

Of course there were also detailed stats that I posted from a "liberal" site so I guess they must be discounted even though there were no stats posted from a conservative site to counter what was posted.

freeman3 wrote:I guess I'll take seven reasonable criteria, objectively scored,over hundreds resulting in a gestalt-like subjective opinion. It also seems like--as Owen noted--that Wall St loves natural resource states. Which I guess makes sense if you're basically an investment newsletter for investors, but it does seem oddly coincidental that the best-run states are the ones with a lot of oil. More like easiest to run, not best-run.