In 2011 the Sicilian regional government ran a E5.3 billion ($6.8 billion) deficit on a E27 billion ($34.8 billion) budget. This year, with the island's credit rating hovering just above junk status and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti cutting subsidies to the regions in an effort to shore up the national budget, Sicily has reached the breaking point. In July a local business leader warned that Sicily, the country's largest region, risked becoming "the Greece of Italy," a black hole of economic dysfunction dragging the rest of the country into default. The danger in Sicily isn't that the island's economy will suddenly implode. As with the rest of Italy, the region's problems are less economic than political. The biggest threats to Sicily's future are its politicians. Sicily's problems are an extreme version of Italy's. The entire country had been heading toward insolvency long before the euro crisis struck.