Controller Says State Will Be Out of Cash April 1

Sound familiar?  State Controller John Chiang is saying that -- barring "prompt action" by the legislature -- the state will run out of cash come April.  So, pretty much, the state is going to run out of cash come April.

This has the makings of a Groundhog's Day-esque rerun of last year's saga of IOUs, RANs and budget stalemate.  As Chiang wrote "While reasonable minds may disagree about the solutions, there is no room for debate about the folly of doing nothing."  In a letter to the Governor and top legislators, Chiang forecasted:

"My analysis of the Governor’s recently released revenue and expenditure estimates shows that the State’s cash position for the remainder of the current fiscal year will be weak from approximately March 30 through April 21. This upcoming shortfall is shallower in depth and shorter in duration than the State’s cash problems in the spring of 2009, when the problem started earlier in the year and grew progressively worse with each passing month. According to my projections, California will drop below its $2.5 billion prudent minimum cash balance on March 30 by $1.3 billion. On April 1, the State will be in the red by $197 million, and our resources to pay bills are not expected to return to safe levels until April 21."

Read the full letter here, and there's also a nifty cash flow chart here.

Comments

[Ellis Goldberg]

Democracy is about empathy -- caring about your fellow citizens, which leads to the principles of freedom and fairness for all. Empathy requires both personal and social responsibility. The ethic of excellence means making the world better by making yourself better, your family better, your community better, and your nation better. Government has two moral missions: protection and empowerment for all. To carry them out, government must be by, for, and of the people.
From George Lakoff in the Huffington Post.

A government that cannot carry out those missions of protection and empowerment becomes a failed state, like Somalia, Afghanistan, Haiti and now California is threatened. War, poverty and earthquakes are not the cause. California is threatened by a few who believe that government is evil and should facilitate the greed of a few at the expense of the many. Loopholes and giveaways that cannot be closed or stopped allow the greedy to take far more than a fair share while California is ripped with budget cuts that are making the California we love a failed state.

One third plus one of either houses of the state legislature currently can veto any budget or revenue legislation – and they do, refusing to consider any new sources of revenue including closing loopholes and ending giveaways. They want to privatize California and run it like a business for the benefit of a few. The purpose of a business is profit for the owners – the purpose of government is protection and empowerment. These two purposes are contradictory and are in conflict.

Californians for democracy will not standby and let California fail. We will put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November 2010 that says
“All legislative action on revenue and budget must be determined by majority vote.”
The California Democracy Act will change the California Constitution in two places – replacing “two thirds” with “a majority” one for revenue the other for budget. Over 700,000 signatures of Californians who are registered to vote are needed to put it on the ballot. This is your chance to change California history.

The petition is now available at www.CA4Democracy.com, both in the 4 signature version (14” x 8.5” legal sized) that we have been using and a single signature version (11” x 8.5” letter size). These petitions can be downloaded, printed, signed and mailed.

In order to make this campaign go viral it is important that you help by telling everyone you know in California to go to www.CA4Democracy.com and get the petition.
1. Email all the Californians on your email list and tell them to similarly forward the email. Make sure the email has www.CA4Democracy.com in it.
2. Write on your facebook wall and those of your friends & groups with the same message.
3. Find blogs that mention the California budget crisis or similar topics and leave a comment telling readers that they can do something about this issue by signing the petition and helping it go viral. The best way to do this is to write a short comment in Word and then paste the same message in all the blogs you can find.
4. Look for letters to the editor opportunities and mention www.CA4Democracy.com every time.
5. Those of you who Tweet – please drive your listeners to www.CA4Democracy.com.
6. Become a circulator of petitions or more involved with the campaign, visit www.CA4Democracy.com.