Just as a debate on Minnesota health care spending rushes in at the Capitol, the Census Bureau offered some numbers to prime the pump.

"State government spending on public welfare was greater than 30 percent of general expenditures in 11 states, led by Minnesota (37.5 percent)," the government numbers bureau said in a news release Wednesday.

The numbers come from the Census' report on State Government Finances. Dig in to the numbers here.

Worth noting: Although the Capitol debate Wednesday will focus on DFL Gov. Mark Dayton, Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty was in charge when the numbers rose.

(This post has been corrected to reflect that the 37.5 percent is a total percentage of spending. The state department of human services also says: "there are health care costs included in the definition of public welfare used by the Census Bureau that we don't account for in the same way in the state budget.")