State budget deficits and State “color”

My curiosity hit again this afternoon after looking at the numbers on state budget deficits presented by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities http://www.cbpp.org/9-8-08sfp.htm.

I put these numbers in the spreadsheet I put together for my last post and looked at these numbers in the context of the presidential election results.  Of the 37 states with budget deficits, 25 of them were blue and the remaining 12 were red.  Of the 13 states that are running budget surpluses, 3 are blue and 10 are red.  So, 90% of blue states are “in the red,” while only 55% of the red states are coming up short.

Unfortunately, that page doesn’t include the amounts of the surpluses…  numbers which I’m sure would be telling.