Only Liberals Could Destroy A State Like California. But They’ve Managed To Do It.

I once had my eyeballs pop out of my skull and bounce off my computer screen when I came across California’s actual debt revealed in the Los Angeles Times:

California’s $500-billion pension time bomb
April 06, 2010|By David Crane

The staggering amount of unfunded debt stands to crowd out funding for many popular programs. Reform will take something sadly lacking in the Legislature: political courage.

The state of California’s real unfunded pension debt clocks in at more than $500 billion, nearly eight times greater than officially reported.

That’s the finding from a study released Monday by Stanford University’s public policy program, confirming a recent report with similar, stunning findings from Northwestern University and the University of Chicago.

Now, stop and think about that: $500 billion.  One state has an unfunded pension liability (thanks, unions!!!) of half a trillion dollars.  And unlike the United States under Obama, California can’t just devalue its currency by printing more money until the inevitable collapse comes.

So with this history of abject liberal stupidity, it should come as absolutely no surprise that California – in spite of its being abundantly blessed with one of the greatest climates in the world, abundant natural resources and numerous major ports – would be utterly bankrupt:

California To Run Out Of Cash In One Month, Controller Warns
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/31/2012 15:15 -0500

If anyone is tired of the daily European soap opera with surrealistic tragicomic overtones, they can simply shift their gaze to the 8th largest economy in the world: the insolvent state of California, whose controller just told legislators has just over a month worth of cash left. From the Sacramento Bee: “California will run out of cash by early March if the state does not take swift action to find $3.3 billion through payment delays and borrowing, according to a letter state Controller John Chiang sent to state lawmakers today. The announcement is surprising since lawmakers previously believed the state had enough cash to last through the fiscal year that ends in June.” ….uh, oops? But sure, fix the problem of excess debt by more “borrowing” why not. As for the math: “But Chiang said additional cash management solutions are needed because state tax revenues are $2.6 billion less than what Gov. Jerry Brown and state lawmakers assumed in their optimistic budget last year. Meanwhile, Chiang said, the state is spending $2.6 billion more than state leaders planned on.” Quick, someone come up with a plan that involves subsidies and tariffs on China, or something else that deflects from what the source of the problem really is. Because the last thing that anyone in America would want to bring up is this thing called “responsibility” for their actions, or, as in now becoming the default case, the lack thereof. And why do that, when time spent so much more productively scapegoating this, and blaming that for one’s own massive errors of judgment.

From the Bee:

The Assembly budget committee is considering a bill today that would enable $865 million of borrowing from existing state accounts, Senate Bill 95. Chiang, after consultation with the Department of Finance and state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, is also seeking about $2.4 billion in delayed payments to universities, counties and Medi-Cal, as well as additional borrowing from outside investors.

Absent these actions, the state would fall below its prudent $2.5 billion cash cushion on Feb. 29, Chiang estimated. On March 8, the state would actually end up $730 million in the red. The state would be below the safe cash cushion for several weeks ending April 13, save for several days at the end of March.

 With such actions, Chiang believes the state would not have to use IOUs or delay tax refunds, maneuvers that have been relied upon in previous years. But Chiang also said that “more cash solutions may be required if our revenues continue to erode or if disbursements significantly exceed estimates.”

So 3 years after Lehman filed for bankruptcy, everyone in the world continues to be terminally insolvent, but because everyone is in the same boat, everyone pretends not to notice and the best thing is just to blame Meredith Whitney for telling it like it is, if not getting the timing quite right? But at least the Fed isn’t about to print up a tsunami of dollar-equivalent ones and zeros.

California is one of the bluest – meaning most liberal – states in the country.  It is the only state in the country, I believe, that actually INCREASED it’s level of total Democrat domination in the 2010 elections when people in virtually every other state finally wised up enough to vote Democrats out in the worst political asskicking in at least seventy years.

Murphy’s Law says “Everything east of the San Andreas fault will eventually plunge into the Atlantic Ocean.”

As cynical as Murphy was, even HE didn’t count on how incredibly stupid the Democrat Party would be in the state of California.

We have been watching Californians fleeing the state in droves and mostly heading to the Republican-red state of Texas.

So what does California do?  Mandate that everything that is wrong with the state become even WORSE by hiking taxes on job creators EVEN MORE.

When the stupid liberals raise taxes, the smart rich leave the state.  And the jobs “mysteriously” leave with them.

And while liberals will never understand why, all the states with the highest tax rates end up having the highest debt.  While all the states that are actually balancing their budgets are conservative tax-cutting states.

California wants to become more like New York and less like … a successful state.

California deserves to implode and go bankrupt. 

I imagine Obama is desperately hoping California can wallpaper over all of the enormous holes in its fiscal house until after the election.  Otherwise he’d have to make the politically suicidal decision to either bail out California (and lose the rest of a legitimately angry nation that will have to pay for a “too big to fail” liberal state) or not bail out California and force the residents of the state to finally realize that liberalism is the best and surest path to self-destruction.  Either way he would have to kiss his re-election chances good-bye.

Tags: budget, California, California will run out of cash, debt, revenues, rich, taxes