The Greece Next Door: Illinois gets a credit downgrade, in contrast to Wisconsin

[Amelia]

This is a subscription article but when I got it from Google, it let me see it. I'll give the link I used but you might need to Google your own:

Review & Outlook: The Greece Next Door - WSJ.com

Run up spending and debt, raise taxes in the naming of balancing the budget, but then watch as deficits rise and your credit-rating falls anyway. That's been the sad pattern in Europe, and now it's hitting that mecca of tax-and-spend government known as Illinois.

Though too few noticed, this month Moody's downgraded Illinois state debt to A2 from A1, the lowest among the 50 states. That's worse even than California. The state's cost of borrowing for $800 million of new 10-year general obligation bonds rose to 3.1%—which is 110 basis points higher than the 2% on top-rated 10-year bonds of more financially secure states.

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In its downgrade statement, Moody's panned Illinois lawmakers for "a legislative session in which the state took no steps to implement lasting solutions to its severe pension underfunding or to its chronic bill payment delays.

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In contrast to the Illinois downgrade, Moody's has praised Mr. Walker's budget as "credit positive for Wisconsin," adding that the money-saving reforms bring "the state's finances closer to a structural budgetary balance." As a result, Wisconsin jumped in Chief Executive magazine's 2011 ranking of each state's business climate—moving to 17th from 41st. Illinois dropped to 48th from 45th as ranked by the nation's top CEOs.

Yet Mr. Walker, who balanced the budget without new taxes, is the governor facing a union-financed attempt to recall him from office this year. If Wisconsin voters want to see where a state ends up without the kind of reforms that Mr. Walker made, they need only look to the Greece next door.

When all this recall commotion is finally over, Wisconsin will be in prime position for growth. Hopefully the Dems don't get their way and send us back to the bottom of the barrel with Illinois.

 

[WillowTree]

Illinois took California's star of the "most fucked up liberal state."

 

[Amelia]

That's what the unions want Wisconsin to be.

We just have to ride out this storm and we'll be in good shape.

Walker deserves a commendation for taking all that fire with such stoicism.