BLUE STATES GONE WILD – AT 1:18 P.M. ET:   Bills are coming due for the mismanagement of some prominent blue states, and guess who may be paying them.  Get your wallet out.  FromBizPacRevue: 

A number of blue states are drowning in “irretrievable” debt, and taxpayers are likely to be on the hook for a looming bailout.

That’s the opinion of Mitch Daniels, the former governor of Indiana, who appeared on Fox Business Network to discuss his recent op-ed published in the Washington Post that highlighted the debt crisis facing Connecticut.

“They’re just one of a number of states, including some of the biggest states, that are in deep water,” Daniels told host Stuart Varney. “I think it is irretrievable. Pensions is the core of it. It’s not the only fiscal recklessness that they have practiced, but in some of those cases, the bill are genuinely unpayable.”

Public pensions “of sometimes grotesque levels,” the Republican wrote in the editorial — which explains the co-dependent relationship that exists between the Democratic Party and public sector unions responsible for these unsustainable pensions.

How grotesque?

“In California, some retired lifeguards are receiving more than $90,000 per year. A retired university president in Oregon received $76,000 per month — and no, that’s not a typo,” Daniels wrote.

Connecticut isn’t alone in state struggling with this burden, with California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York unable to make pension payments to retired government workers, according to Fox Business Network.

In Illinois, for instance, vendors wait months to be paid by a government that’s $30 billion in debt, and one whose bonds are just one notch above junk bond status, according to Daniels. New York’s more than $356 billion in debt; New Jersey more than $104 billion; and California more than $428 billion.

COMMENT:  Benjamin Franklin, among others, argued that democracies last only until people learn that they can raid the public treasury.  I'm afraid it's true.

If the Democrats take control of the federal government, we'll no doubt be asked to pay for the irresponsible states.  And I'm afraid we will, because we'll be warned by scare stories of what will happen to "the children" if we don't.  It's always the same racket.

July 29, 2018