Connecticut’s fiscal condition — the ability to meet its financial and service obligations — was the second worst in the nation in fiscal year 2012, according to a study by free-market-leaning Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
In the study, Mercatus economist Sarah Arnett uses indices of cash solvency, budget solvency, long-run solvency and service-level solvency to create an overall fiscal condition index.
New Jersey ranked last and Alaska ranked first.
“Although the ranking is a snapshot in time, the states at the bottom are there due to years of poor financial management decisions, bad economic conditions, or a combination of the two,” Arnett wrote. “New Jersey and Connecticut face similar problems: tax revenues that have not kept up with expenditures, use of budget practices that only appeared to balance their annual budgets, and significant debt levels as a result of decades of using bonds without being able to pay for them.”
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