Truth in Accounting Report: Financial State of the States 2026, page 11
Just in time, Truth in Accounting released its annual report on how fiscally sound each state is, based on comprehensive financial reporting from fiscal year 2025.
The report’s central question answered is how much debt to assets a state has. As the saying goes – debt is the sign of taxes unseen – or something like that. Meaning, of course, that states can’t go bankrupt, so if enormous debt accumulates, taxpayers will likely see future tax increases, since it is nearly impossible to grow your way out of very high debt.
As the chart above shows, Illinois is not in a good position, although it has improved slightly from last year’s report, which said taxpayer burden was $38,800.
Here is a screenshot of the first page for Illinois in the report:
That’s an “F” grade; much of the reason for the high debt is our overly generous pension system. In contrast, Indiana has a surplus and a “B” rating, and Iowa has a surplus and an “A” rating.
Truth in Accounting also does an annual report on the major cities in the U.S. That report can be found HERE.
Putting the two reports together, a Chicago taxpayer would have a combined state and city tax burden of $79,500. Keep in mind that the calculation is simple: total debt divided by total taxpayers. It should be noted that many of those taxpayers are not wealthy. If this debt is collected on, it will be with higher taxes on the wealthy and businesses and increasing property taxes for all.
Am I scaring anyone yet? Because the real ghouls children should be dressed up as for Halloween are the politicians who made promises with your money for services and contracts that most Illinoisans cannot afford.
In a Facebook Live discussion, I mentioned a Facebook post by State Rep. John Cabello, who represents the Rockford area and serves as a police officer in the City of Rockford. Cabello’s post discussed police and firefighters not having a contract, 911 operators being overworked, and the city potentially eliminating 20 police officer positions due to budget problems.
Here’s a screenshot of the post.
This isn’t new. Rockford and other cities, like Harvey right now, have been desperate to renegotiate legacy contracts that they cannot afford. Over adecade ago, then Rockford Mayor Larry Morrissey even came to Springfield to testify on a bill that would have allowed municipalities a path towards that renegotiation. No one wanted to say it authorized “bankruptcy” for municipalities, but in essence that’s what the legislation would do.
Morrissey showed up 12 years ago because Rockford was in financial dire straits. The Mayor of Danville said the same thing two years later. And now it’s Harvey. There are other cities in a similar situation.
Chicago has a debt problem fed by its annual pork-laden budgets. This year is no different. At the time of the Detroit bankruptcy, Chicago was in worse shape than Detroit.
Here is an excerpt from a Barron’s article written on October 14, 2013. It shows Chicago’s debt-to-revenue ratio is worse than Detroit’s.
Back then, Chicago’s debt and pension liabilities were 683% of its revenue. In 2025, Chicago’s pension debt was $36.4 billion, with total debt of $ 52.9 billion and revenue of $11.9 billion.
Any politician making promises to fund new programs or benefits or not discussing the enormous debt both our state and a number of cities have, should be rejected at the ballot box. This includes anybody running for school boards.
Taxpayers in Illinois are paying more than they should. Our politicians should make it their job to be honest with the people about which services the government is responsible for providing and what we can afford.
Look what’s going on in France. I’m not an expert, but it seems fairly obvious that decades of bad decisions on government spending and open migration without assimilation and understanding has created the crisis resulting in the riots.
The photos are alarming. Here’s what VP JD Vance posted:
Breitbart made it clear who was responsible for the riots. Read here: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/10/17/france-on-fire-government-blames-far-left-for-fuelling-nationwide-riots-looting-and-arson/
CNN Headline: France wakes up to wreckage of a night of rioting after protests turned violent
WSJ Headline: Violent Protests Rip Through Cities Across France
It’s not just France. Riots reported again in Italy. And last week, Brussels, the U.K., and Ireland. Europe is ahead of us on the issues of long-term migration of foreigners who come from a non-Western culture. What’s happening there is a cautionary tale for us.
With the rise of the DSA candidates and the Democratic Party’s intent to open the borders if given power again,
