Ok, this isn't going to be perfect, but it'll be close.
Amazingly, most states in the Midwest (and in the country at-large) don't like to give out employee salary information or pension numbers. Kansas seems to be the only state that does, so I'm basing some of this off that.
If I am estimating correctly, the total budgets of the 10 Midwest states come to being about $150 billion. (John Ford can correct me here if he wants to).
Government employee spending (in Kansas at least) comes to being roughly 16% of the state budget.
So, if you were to cut state government employee salaries by 5%, according to my math, you would save $1.2 billion.
Once again, I'll listen to objections, because I may have calculated this wrong.
Just doing that would cut our deficit by 63% 
That is across-the-board. I would say across-the-board cuts are probably not the best idea. John Ford has presented me targeted cuts in salaries that will produce less revenue, but will be responded to much better by government unions.
