By Les Dunaway

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Meredith Whitney looks at the state of the states. With the end of stimulus money and the end of QE2 (quantitative easing) just weeks away, this is timely. In January we talked about the states “The States – America’s PIIGS?” in relation the EU countries.

Several states have used stimulus money to put off dealing with systemic problems – for a counter example, see Wisconsin and Indiana. When the QE2-suppressed interest rates begin to rise, borrowing to support continued spending will become more and more expensive – see Portugal & Greece.

We in Georgia are lucky to have legislators who have reduced spending. What is, however, unclear is where we stand with unfunded pensions and benefits programs at the state, county and city levels. Do YOU know what sort of debt bomb is ticking in your state, in your county, in your city? Do you know how to find out? Do you know what to do when you find out?

I’d really like some comments with answers to those questions. With those answers, we can either be very proud to be Georgians or very scared. Either way, we will be better off knowing the truth.