The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has created two visual tools to demonstrate how the various states spend their budgets. The first visualization (www.thegatesnotes.com/TED/Speakers-Topics/Bill-Gates/Infographic-State-Budget-Spending) breaks down all 50 state budgets to show size, allocation across main spending areas, and relative priorities.
The second visualization (www.thegatesnotes.com/TED/Speakers-Topics/Bill-Gates/Infographic-State-Budgets-Pension-Healthcare) explores states' funding levels for pending health care and pension obligations.
Though users are cautioned not to confuse rankings with actual measures of real spending, these are still interesting tools.
