The state has also continued to issue markers to people it owes. The Civic Federation recently estimated that Illinois' backlog of unpaid bills financed out of its General Fund will grow to $5.5 billion this year. That state has an additional backlog of some $2.8 billion in business tax refunds and Medicaid and employee health insurance bills, for a whopping $8.3 billion in outstanding invoices.

Those business tax refunds the state is holding onto are especially rankling to firms. Imagine having your corporate tax rate boosted by nearly 50 percent to bail out your state, which then doesn't bother using the money to pay you a refund you have coming. Meanwhile, the Chicago Sun-Times reported recently that Gov. Quinn intervened to ensure that a well-connected Illinois Democrat and his lawyers received a timely $285,000 payment they had coming from the state.

There are many titles that you could apply to Illinois, but The Loophole State fits especially nicely. One way the state balanced this year's budget is via a loophole that lets the state forego paying some of this year's Medicaid bills, about $1.7 billion, until next year. Of course without reform the state is very unlikely to have enough money next year to pay all of its Medicaid bills plus the additional $1.7 billion from this year.

Hence Gov. Quinn's desire to borrow another $5 billion or so. Once you get on a treadmill like this, you can't get off, it seems. The state's bonded debt has increased to $30 billion from $9.4 billion since just 2002. Still, if the state offers a big premium to investors hungry for yield in this low-interest rate environment, some may yet be willing to scoop up the state's debt, though the prospect of loaning money to a state that owes, according to the Tribune, some $200 billion in muni debt, unpaid bills and unfunded pension obligations may also prompt some investors to pause.

In fairness, Illinois is not the only state that's failed to address its most fundamental fiscal problems since the financial meltdown of 2008. But Illinois has been so far and away the worst state fiscally that after the crisis earlier this year it appeared legislators in Springfield had no place to go but up. Apparently not.