68 THE FISCAL PROBLEM IN MISSOURI

is of a nature similar to that of Missouri and does not represent
 outstanding indebtedness that must be liquidated on
any given date or dates, the statistics of floating debt are
not entirely comparable. For this reason the discussion
will be confined to the current debt. At the end of the fiscal
year 1928, only one state in the group, Wisconsin, had a
more favorable current debt position than Missouri. Wisconsin
 had no current debt whatever at the end of any of the
years included in the table. Of the remaining states, Kansas
had the smallest current debt at the end of the fiscal year
1928, and Kentucky, the highest. The latter state in recent
years has had a larger volume of current debt than any other
state in the group, but its current debt has not constituted a
problem of any significance for the reason that its net bonded
debt has either been negligible in amount or a minus quantity.t


FuncrioNAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE STATE DEBT
It has been pointed out that net bonded debt differs from
total bonded debt outstanding by the amount of the sinking
fund assets. So long as a state has any sinking fund assets
it is not possible to make a functional distribution on the
basis of net bonded debt, for thesinking fund assets represent
a fund that under ordinary conditions is regarded as applicable
 to reducing debt in general and not any particular part
of it. Accordingly, when a functional distribution is desired,
funded or bonded debt outstanding must be used. Also,
since floating debt is ordinarily for an intermediate time
period, it should be included.
Table 21 shows the funded and floating debt? of Missouri,
as of the end of given years, classified according to the purpose
 for which it was incurred. At the end of 1918 Missouri
had outstanding only $2.4 million of bonded debt, which
had been incurred for building purposes, and the floating
debt consisted of $4.4 million of school and seminary certificates
 of indebtedness. General government buildings in

1 Kentucky's sinking fund assets in a number of years exceeded the bonded debt
obligations outstanding. See footnotes to Table 18, p. 63.
2 The amount shown under “ Combined or Unreported Purposes” is the only item
classified as floating debt.