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Illinois Sets A Record For Lowest Credit Score For A U.S. State
It's no secret that Illinois has been hurting financially for quite some time now. Well the S&P Global Ratings has just made it historically bad.
IllinoisPolicy - The credit rating agency has downgraded the state of Illinois' credit rating to BBB-, just one notch about a non-investment grade, or "junk," rating. S&P has also place the state rating on "negative" watch, meaning the agency could downgrade Illinois again in the near future.
I have basically zero grasp on the financial world but it basically seems like Illinois has been put on double secret probation and we haven't been going to class all semester.
The main beef S&P seems to have with the state is that we haven't passed a budget for 2018. It seems crazy that we've been talking about the budget for so long but here we are. On the precipice of being labeled a junk property. We're supposed to save those kind of ratings for states like Alabama or Mississippi, we're not supposed to be this bad.
It also gets worse from there;
S&P warned that Illinois is in danger of entering "a negative credit spiral." That means that the lower credit rating will make it more expensive for Illinois to borrow money, and thus even harder for the state to pay its bills. This in turn could result in an even lower rating.
That's a reassuring feeling. We have so much not money that it's going to be even harder to pay it off. As with everything in life this reminds me of a great Louis CK bit. The language is a bit NSFW but it really sums up how hard it's going to be to turn this state around.
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