US President Barack Obama greets guests after a town hall meeting on the national debt in Annandale, Virginia. He warned that failure to rein in galloping deficits may cause "serious damage" to the US economy, even as he assailed Republican spending cuts. (AFP/Mandel Ngan)
Even California, which is in the deepest financial doo-doo of any state, could balance their budget simply by cutting off benefits to anyone who is not legally in the country.
The formula might be slightly more complicated for a state like Illinois which isn't quite so innundated with illegal aliens scooping up benefits which they didn't pay for and have no right to collect, but it would still get them most of the way there.