Joseph Lawler of the Washington Examiner highlights a new report on fiscally mismanaged states.

New Jersey and Illinois unsurprisingly are the two states with the worst finances, according to a new ranking published by the Mercatus Center, a libertarian think tank at George Mason University.

Those two blue states led by Republican governors, which have been wracked by fiscal crises in recent days, were joined at the bottom of the rankings this year by a third: Massachusetts.

Kentucky and Maryland round out the top five fiscally mismanaged states. Illinois, New Jersey and Kentucky have been in the bottom five in recent years and are “consistently doing poorly,” said Adam Millsap, a Mercatus researcher. “There’s probably a case to be made that those three are in the worst shape.”

On the other end of the spectrum, five red states can claim to be the best managed: Florida, the Dakotas, Utah and Wyoming.

New Jersey and Illinois unsurprisingly are the two states with the worst finances, according to a new ranking published by the Mercatus Center, a libertarian think tank at George Mason University.

Those two blue states led by Republican governors, which have been wracked by fiscal crises in recent days, were joined at the bottom of the rankings this year by a third: Massachusetts.

Kentucky and Maryland round out the top five fiscally mismanaged states. Illinois, New Jersey and Kentucky have been in the bottom five in recent years and are “consistently doing poorly,” said Adam Millsap, a Mercatus researcher. “There’s probably a case to be made that those three are in the worst shape.”

On the other end of the spectrum, five red states can claim to be the best managed: Florida, the Dakotas, Utah and Wyoming.