I constantly remind people that government spending is the most important fiscal variable, not deficits/debt.

After all, it is government spending that drains resources from the productive sector of the economy, regardless of whether it is financed by taxes, borrowing, or money-printing.

With that in mind, I want to share some very important charts put together by a businesswoman in California. I have not verified her numbers, but she’s using the right sources and making the right comparisons.

We’ll start with the grim data from Ms. Davidson’s home state. No wonder the state has been in a steady decline (which may become a rapid decline).

Illinois is almost synonymous with fiscal irresponsibility.

This chart confirms that the state is committing fiscal suicide.

Minnesota has become infamous for welfare fraud.

But as you can see from this chart, that’s just the top of the iceberg.

There are some states that have done well over the past 10 years. Sort of.

Why did I add the qualification?

Because her overall 10-year numbers for Texas are good, but you get a different outcome if you look at what’s happened since 2020 (as Vance Ginn has warned).

By the way, here are her numbers for the federal budget.

Not as bad as some of the states, but still grotesquely irresponsible. Trump let spending surge during the pandemic and Biden continued the spending binge.

The bottom line is that all states should copy Colorado and have a strong TABOR-style spending cap. Except copy TABOR as originally designed since it has been weakened a bit over the past 30-plus years.

And the moral of the story for the federal government is to do something like TABOR, though copying Switzerland’s highly effective spending cap also would be a great outcome.