Fiscal Health and Voting

The Mercatus Center's latest research paper shows the fiscal health of the states.  The health is based on five factors: Cash solvency, Budget solvency, long-run solvency, service-level solvency, and trust fund solvency.  By ranking each state on each of these factors, the study determined how well the states were doing in comparison to each other.  Though not part of the study, Investor's Business Daily (IBD) noted that low-tax Republican states rated high while high-tax Democrat states rated low.  Here is a basic breakdown:

Top 5 States: Florida, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming lead the rankings.  Though Florida was not number 1 in any single factor, its high marks in each earned it the top spot.  Of note, Trump won all 5 of these states.

Above Average States: Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Idaho, Montana, Alabama, Ohio, Nevada, North Carolina, Indiana, Alaska, and Virginia are doing fairly well.  Trump won 11 of these state and Hillary won 2.

Average States: South Carolina, Arkansas, Oregon, Georgia, Texas, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Washington, Hawaii, Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Delaware sit in the middle.  Hillary won 7 of these states to Trump's 6.

Below Average: Kansas, Arizona, Mississippi, Maine, Michigan, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Vermont, New Mexico, West Virginia, California, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania all need improvement to stave off an Illinois-type disaster.  Trump and Hillary split these with 7 each.

Bottom 5 States: Maryland, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Illinois, and New Jersey were at the bottom.  Chris Christie was a Republican hero when he first burst onto the scene with his tough talk about getting the fiscal house in order.  The state is now 37th in cash solvency, 49th in budget solvency, 50th in long-run solvency, 24th in service level solvency, and 39th in trust fund solvency.  The reason Illinois is the one going bankrupt first is because New Jersey still has some cash available to pay bills for a bit longer; Illinois is 48th in cash solvency.  Hillary won 4 of these states to Trump's 1.

IBD has a chart that shows the top 10 states are run by Republicans (sole exception being a Democrat governor in Montana) while 6 of the bottom 10 are Democrat and 2 of the Republican states have Democrat governors.  Want fiscal health?  Vote Republican.