3 October—Connecticut has the very highest taxpayer debt of all the fifty states, $79.5 billion. According to Truth in Accounting (a conservative nonprofit with a good reputation), that works out to $62,500 each of Connecticut’s taxpayers is on the hook for to pay all of the state’s bills. That’s almost double what it was in 2014.

Not that we in overtaxed and overburdened Connecticut care, of course, but coming in a close second is New Jersey, with only $58,300 per taxpayer to pay off its debt. New York is several places behind, with a mere $20,100.

Compare those unquestionably abysmal figures to the average debt burden in the United States: $9,300, which is some $2,000 higher than last year. And, lest we forget, Alaska had a taxpayer surplus—that’s right, a surplus—of $55,000, the highest of the few states in the country that actually had surpluses rather than debts.

And, while not immediately relevant to Connecticut’s embarrassing and entirely self-inflicted fiscal distress, if the price of milk had risen at the same rate as nationwide health-care prices since World War II, a gallon would cost about $160 today, according to a study from the University of California.

But keep this in mind: In government, all debts can be reduced or erased simply by raising taxes, no matter what they’re called . . .