Posted on 04/02/2013 7:42:28 AM PDT by outpostinmass2
Were California's state government a business, it would be a candidate for insolvency with a negative net worth of $127.2 billion, according to an annual financial report issued by State Auditor Elaine Howle and the Bureau of State Audits. The report, which covers the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012, says that the state's negative status -- all of its assets minus all of its liabilities -- increased that year, largely because it spent more than it received in revenue. During the 2011-12 fiscal year, the state's general fund spent $1.7 billion more than it received in revenues and wound up with an accumulated deficit of just under $23 billion from several years of red ink. Gov. Jerry Brown has referred to that and other budget gaps, mostly money owed to schools, as a "wall of debt" totaling more than $30 billion. Last November, voters passed an increase in sales and income taxes that Brown says will balance the state's operating budget and allow the debt wall to be gradually dismantled. About half of the $127.2 billion in accumulated red ink came from the state's issuing general obligation bonds and then giving the money to local governments and school districts for public works projects, the auditor pointed out. The assets built with the bonds remain on local balance sheets while the bonded debt accrues to the state.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.sacbee.com ...
The list of long-term obligations did not include the much-disputed unfunded liabilities for state employees’ future pensions, nor the $60-plus billion in unfunded liabilities for retiree health care. The Governmental Accounting Standards Board and Moody’s, a major bond credit rating house, have been pushing states and localities to include unfunded retiree obligations in their balance sheets and were they to be added to California’s, it could push its negative net worth down by several hundred billion dollars.
I’ll take Chapter 9 for everything Alex
Candidate? It should be the example you see when you look up the definition of insolvency in Webster's dictionary.
Wasn’t Jerry Brown just crowing about how great we are doing and Krugman yesterday mentions how great Ca’s economy is because they booted the Republicans and increased taxes.
Someone is lying, that yellow stuff isn’t rain.
The New American Dream:
- Live and spend like the Obamas.
- Run up huge unsustainable debt.
- File bankruptcy.
- Stick creditors and taxpayers with the debt.
- Walk away and do it all over again.
Do it again to whom?
Well. Let's start with California...
And then there's that Thatcher thing about other people's money.
I remember a conversation with a libinlaw, way pre-0bama.
She was advocating for some program or other, and I asked how it was going to be paid for.
The answer was “the money’s out there!”
Whew! SCARED me for a second. I thought it read $127.2 TRILLION!!
BILLION: chump change!
She is right, of course. The money is on the Government Money Tree. I believed in that too, until I was, oh, six years old.
Up the tax on tobacco and alcohol and start selling pot and opening brothels and taxing both at 50%, in addition to a expensive licensing and inspection costs.
Not quite insolvent - Revenues are still quite high enough to pay off the debts. Debt is only about 4k per person there and interest about 200 per person per year. If the average income is about 40k in California, this isn’t a problem, just yet.
They have already done most of these things and more. And it still is not enough $.
“Up the tax on tobacco and alcohol and start selling pot and opening brothels and taxing both at 50%, in addition to a expensive licensing and inspection costs.”
Quality control inspector would be worth looking into.
Living on the edge. How fun.
I don’t think brothels and pot selling are legal there, are they?
History has shown that people will pay for their vices.
indeed
The auditor is not taking into account Calpers and their healthcare for life. The state is done.
Pot is legal, brothels will be next.
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