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California: Who Gets Paid

Morgan Clendaniel
By Morgan ClendanielJul 04, 2009
Morgan Clendaniel
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California, which is leaking money like a leaky bucket, is no longer able to make all the payments it needs to make. Instead, the state is issuing IOUs to some of the people it should be sending checks to, on the assumption that at some point the state will have more money and can pay them back (this assumption, while historically accurate, also seems dangerous). So, who gets the IOUs? Felix Salmon posted the handy chart above.What we see here is that anyone who really needs money right now-people on temporary assistance, mental health patients, those in drug rehab-they get an IOU. Anyone who, say, works for the UC system or the correctional system-people who might have enough cash in the bank to skip a paycheck or two-get their checks like nothing happened. It can't be a coincidence that most of the people offered IOUs seem fairly unlikely to have the time or wherewithal to redeem them at the nebulous point in the future when California deems it has enough money to pay them. Nice trick.The worst part of this chart is the legislators continuing to get paid. Shouldn't the people who have failed several times to offer a feasible budget be the first people who take a pay cut when they run out of money?
elections and politics

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