Monday, January 19, 2009

Can California Really Do That??

So, as pretty much everyone knows California is broke. I mean really broke. I argued this point when the elections came around and the stupid people of California voted for more spending, but alas people aren't always so smart. So, now not only is the state broke with bond issues that are barely above junk bond status, but the yahoos the are running the state seem to be incapable of coming up with a budget. So according to various news agencies the state will apparently be out of money Feb 1. Therefore, they are now reporting that their current money saving strategy is going to issue IOUs for income tax refunds. Did you hear that IOUs, from a state with no money. Seriously, folks they are threatening to not honor the tax refunds owed to the people. Can they do that? Apparently, they can.

Now I know that overpaying taxes and then getting refunds is giving the government an interest free loan, and I know it isn't smart. However, the couple of years i had to pay taxes were really rough and every year I have a couple of really big bills that always come in around the time that I get my tax refund and the beginning of the year is always a little tighter financially for me, so getting a nice check from the government has been working for me. But... If they are going to start not honoring what they owe then this policy needs some serious rethinking. I had a long chat with my dad, my ever present financial advisor and he gave me some good advice. I'm going to do some homework and see what I can make work. In the meantime I curse those elected state officials for throwing my money away and not honoring their debt. Curse you

2 comments:

JaxMom said...

Man. IL has a prompt payment law, so that any bill over 60 days they have to pay interest on. IL is paying ALOT of interest these days. I hope our government does not hear about CA doing that. I too save by refund.

Lisa said...

Crazy - I'd not heard of that. Florida is in major trouble also. Much of our economy was built on construction growth which has come to a screeching halt. In addition, the stupid taxpayers in our state voted for a bill proposed by the stupid governor in our state to save us all a couple of bucks in property tax. A couple of bucks per house adds up to a whole lot of bucks missing from a state budget. We have no state income tax. Talk is to make up the deficit by issuing more speeding tickets, increasing cigarette tax and encouraging more gambling. Does not seem a good solution to me.