Friends, Americans, countrymen, lend me your ears. It’s time to talk about something near and dear to my heart: Illinois.

“Illinois!?” you say. “How can that be ‘near and dear to your heart’?”. Well, as any self-respecting Wisconsinite will tell you, there is an interesting dynamic between our two states. After all, we’re virtually raised to hate the place from birth, thanks to the nearly century old sports rivalries that divide us. Packers-Bears, Brewers-Cubs, Bucks-Bulls; you name it, we’ve got it when it comes to rivalries.

There’s also their stupid toll roads. Like, what is that all about?

And don’t get me started on their taxes. You can’t buy a cheeseburger down there without breaking the bank.

But of course, there’s some admirable things about Illinois. Shedd Aquarium is pretty cool. Navy Pier is up there. Inevitably, those are only the “touristy” things. A real Chicagoan will tell you there’s 101 better things hidden away in the Windy City and the state at-large.

Yet, for the sake of my Six Flags Great America season pass let me get back to something a tad more heavy-handed: breaking that bank.

You see, the great state of Illinois is facing a fiscal crisis on an unimaginable level. They have not passed a complete state budget for two years, the only state in the union to hold that distinction. They are rapidly hemorrhaging credibility, as the ratings agency Moody’s has now downgraded the state to its lowest investment grade rating. The situation has become so bad, in fact, that Illinois is looking at a historic option in order to dig itself out: declaring for bankruptcy.

Such action is not only unprecedented, but at the current moment, impossible. In order to file for chapter nine bankruptcy, Congress would have to pass a new law establishing the ability for states to do so. Currently that protection is only afforded to counties and municipalities (i.e. Detroit).

An ironic standard-bearer for Illinois’ woes are its lottery winners. 29 jackpot winners won big when they bought tickets from the Illinois Lottery, but the lottery agency currently has no legal means to make payouts of that scale—at least until a budget is in place.

So, how did the Land of Lincoln reach this fever pitch?

Two simple things: excessive taxation and unfunded liabilities.

The majority of Illinois’ debt comes from state pension funds for state workers. Illinois has more than 660 of these funds. Virtually none of them have the money promised to pay their retirees. Optimistic overinvestment into these funds, particularly during the crash of 2008, caused promised benefits to outpace what the state government was actually capable of paying out. In fact, the general assembly wasn’t required to fund these pensions whatsoever, using tax money on other expenditures such as infrastructure.

Secondly, the excessive amount of taxation in Illinois has established long-lasting repercussions that have shrunk the state’s overall revenue stream. Illinois has a statewide sales tax of 6.25%, which increases as high as 10.25% depending on what county/municipality you are making your purchase in (i.e. Chicago). Illinois also has the second highest property tax rate in the country, sitting at an average of 2.13% which is more than double the national average. According to Illinois Policy, Illinois has the fourth-highest tax burden in the nation.

This has led to an exodus of people from the state, as for the last three consecutive years Illinois has lost residents, with its current estimated population almost 30,000 below the 2010 Census. In doing so, fuel has only been added to the fire. Fewer residents means a smaller tax base to draw from in order to even begin to address the problem.

I suppose I feel something of a vested interest in this situation not only because of my proximity to the state, but because my own state was at one point in time in a position not too dissimilar.

Prior to Scott Walker taking office, Wisconsin had a massively out of control pension system. At the beginning of Gov. Walker’s tenure, the state was facing a $3.6 billion budget shortfall after years of mismanagement by the previous Democratic governor and state legislature. With the passage of Wisconsin Act 10, a budget repair bill, Wisconsin was not only able to balance its books, but solve its pension problems, primarily by having state employees, who had previously paid little to nothing towards their retirement, contribute on a larger scale.

As anyone who has followed politics in Wisconsin for the past eight years or so knows, doing so wasn’t easy. The passage of Act 10 triggered the largest political fight in the history of the state, and one of the largest in the history of the country. Public employee unions, upset over what they viewed as an unfair burden on them (despite the plan matching much of what private sector employees face) retaliated viciously with nearly two years of grotesque protest. They also triggered recall elections against members of the state legislature and Gov. Walker, none of which were successful.

The point being, despite the tough and often unpopular decisions made by Gov. Walker and state Republicans, Wisconsin is now much better off financially than it was eight years ago.

The same cannot be said of our southern neighbors who have neglected to make the same tough decisions and have instead let the problem fester and grow out of control.

I don’t know the exact answer to solve Illinois’ woes, but I do know where I would start if I (with all my 18 years of wisdom) were given such unilateral control. I would implement a laissez-faire style of government, cutting taxes to encourage growth and draw residents back to the state. Reward business and innovation, don’t punish them through taxation. I would also implement a balanced budget as quickly as possible, not spending a penny more than the state has at its disposal. How exactly the state would pay for the pensions it has already promised remains to be seen, but setting the state on sound fiscal footing is a good place to start.

Whether the state of Illinois does in fact go bankrupt in the next few months remains to be seen. Whatever the outcome of this crisis might be, for all the reasons I’ve listed, ironic and not, the future of Illinois is one that we should definitely be interested in.