(This is a sister thread to the one asking for which state has its act the most together. All positive comment should go there)
Which of the 50 states in America is just the most overall messed up?
I mean things like the state that is most corrupt, has a bad education system, is in debt, had unrepaired streets and bridges, etc etc
All states have spots of beauty and some great aspects, but which one is just simply the most unorganized and badly run?
My home state of Louisiana is an obvious contender based on the above criteria but the fact that it has New Orleans itself and a rather unique culture disqualifies it in my mind.
California.
It’s looking at a budget deficit of $41.8 billion dollars by 2010.
By way of comparison, it’s expecting to bring in $86 billion in revenues next year.
It has a stupid process of ballot propositions, which basically makes the state ungovernable. For example, it requires a 2/3 majority of the legislature to pass the annual budget. This means that no budget is passed until long after it is due. There’s also a 2/3 majority requirement to raise any taxes. Which means that taxes will never be raised.
And Republicans use this tyranny of the minority to insist on balancing the budget solely through deep spending cuts.
Source: Los Angeles Times
For some reason, Californians like to blame the legislature for this state of affairs. When it’s our own fucking fault.
IMHO, you start in MS and work your way out. AL, LA, TN, GA, AK, etc. End up with OR and WA. (AK and HI I guess must be edens by this rule!)
CA has budget stupidity that will start causing huge problems soon, but for the moment they still have functioning schools, road system, prisons, etc.
There was an article recently listing states by corruption and GA scored quite low. But the criteria was convictions. GA has the weakest corruption laws and no enforcement of those. So guess why the number of convictions is low. Stupid, stupid, list.
Kansas, because we have Fred Phelps.
Top that!
Louisiana.
Hands down.
No debate needed.
Texas
We gave you George Bush and our current gov is Rick Perry
Gotta say good old Cali.
Illinois deserves a nomination: Chicago Politics is notorious and many of the recent governors have had scandals.
Well Illinois seems to have some challenges with corruption I hear…
Tennessee. They have a 5.5% sales tax on groceries.
Nothing says “Fuck the poor” like taxing their food.
Only Florida has its own Fark tag.
And we only just now stopped taxing groceries. When I was a kid I thought everybody did.
There are sales tax states that don’t tax groceries? Well, I’ll be. I just checked Wikipedia, and they claim CT doesn’t charge sales tax on unprepared food. Maybe I only buy prepared food at the grocery store, because I’ve never noticed this before. I guess I should read the receipt instead of just shoving it into my pocket.
This.
And for your further consideration, I submit the following:
Give it six months and it’ll be Michigan – hands down.
Utah is the reddest state in the union; I’m not talking about the rocks.
We have polygamous communities.
Some asshole from here personally donated a million dollars to stop gay marriage in California.
There’s an employer in Salt Lake that got sued for waterboarding one of his employees.
The list goes on…
Now I challenge that! While it is a contender, we have some good points. Not the least is two great ways of cooking crawfish. 
Louisiana has a lot of problems, but there are at least parts of the state that are well-run. I live in St. Tammany and local Government does well now and did well all things considered after Katrina. [like the parish president asked around to learn of things to be careful of during recovery and quickly heard about FEMA. He appointed an accounting staff from almost the time the winds died down to keep track of the paperwork. So now while all the other Jurisdictions are crying poverty and saying they can’t pay after the audits, we have receipts! It literally made millions of $ of difference] So there are definitely good places and good things happening here. Lots of problems and we aren’t anywhere near the top. But not the bottom either. At least from where I sit. And even New Orleans voted out icebox Jefferson.
Arizona might also be a contender.
Horrible governors such as Fife Symington and Evan Mecham
John McCain is actually better than John Kyl
You really don’t want to mention speed cameras or red light cameras to anyone who lives here.
Still, there are so many good things about the state. I’m sure most people in Chicago don’t wake up in the morning thinking about how corrupt the politics are.
I’m surprised that most replies are not Illinois in light of the events of the last week. I feel a real embarrassment after all this Blagojevich nonsense.
WV taxes groceries big time, 6% I think.