I don't claim to know much about how state 'debt ratings" work, but I do know that when the S&P downgrades your rating, it's not a good thing.

Financial analysts at Standard & Poor’s downgraded New Jersey’s debt rating today, flagging Gov. Chris Christie’s budget practices as something that should give pause to investors.

While noting that the state economy has been growing steadily in recent years and has several bright spots that could help in the long run, the Wall Street rating house had tough words for the Republican governor, saying he has a habit of building budgets on rosy economic forecasts.

As a result, tax collections tend to lag by hundreds of millions of dollars every year, punching holes into the state budget and forcing Christie to use stopgap fixes, the analysts said.

"Almost five years after the official start of the economic recovery, New Jersey continues to struggle with structural imbalance and stands in stark difference to many of its peers who registered sizeable budgetary surpluses in fiscal 2013," the S&P analysts wrote in a note to investors today.

Governor Chris Christie has done nothing to help the people in New Jersey since he's been their governor and this latest knock on his budgets only makes things worst for the people. The news continues to be ugly for Gov. Chris Christie, as he tries to dig out from underneath the Bridgegate scandal and protect his presidential aspirations.