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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bentway who wrote (959062)	8/25/2016 12:44:52 AM
From: Sdgla	Respond to of 1576346

Best-Run States Are Heavily Republican, Study Finds This map shows how states rank on five measures of fiscal health. Most of the best-run states are Republican. (Mercatus Center) JOHN MERLINE6/01/2016 Reprints The ten most financially sound states in the country are all heavily Republican, while all but one of the ten worst states are heavily Democratic. That’s according to a ranking of states in a new report from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University The report -- “Ranking the States by Fiscal Condition” -- used official government data to measure the states’ ability to pay short-term bills and meet longer-term obligations, such as public pensions or health care costs, using five separate measures. Cash solvency, for example, measures a state's ability to pay its immediate bills. Budget solvency measures whether states will end the year with a surplus or deficit. Long-run solvency looks at a state’s ability to meet long-term spending commitments. Service-level solvency measures a state’s ability to respond to a demand for increased spending. And trust fund solvency measures unfunded pension liabilities and state debt. States can do well on some measures and poorly on others. Alaska, for example, ranks at the top for cash, budget and long-run solvency, but near the bottom on the other two measures. Ohio ranks fifth in cash solvency, but 48th on trust fund solvency. This year’s report includes Puerto Rico, which scored dead last on every measure. The report also provides an overall ranking of the states. And while Mercatus makes no mention of the states’ political leanings, every state in the top 10 except for Florida is solidly red, meaning those states voted for the Republican in each of the past four presidential elections (see table). And Florida has had a Republican governor since 1999, and the state House and Senate are both controlled by Republicans. Get instant access to exclusive stock lists and powerful tools on Investors.com. Try us free for 4 weeks. At the other end of the spectrum, except for Kentucky, the 10 worst states are all solidly blue. And all but two of the governors since 1947 have been Democrats. Politicians, especially the “pragmatic” ones, are always talking about how they are just interested in what works. When it comes to keeping spending, debt and long-term liabilities under control, the place to look seems obvious. The conservative approach of lower taxes and limited government is a winner, while big-spending liberalism invariably leads to financial ruin. You can find the Mercatus report here.