Can't Pay Your Bills? Pull a Dumb and Dumber!

"That's as good as money, sir. Those are IOUs." - Lloyd Christmas, Dumber and Dumber

California can't balance its budget so the state will be issuing IOUs to vendors and recipients of state aid. This coming after the state held onto tax refunds and delayed payment because the state didn't have the cash to give the taxpayers THEIR MONEY BACK.

I wonder if I can start mailing my creditors and landlord IOUs. Nah, I'm not a Terminator so I guess I'll just have to pay up like everyone else (except government).

The debacle is held up because Democrats in the state legistlature want to raise taxes but Schwarzenegger refuses to and instead wants to reduce spending to close the budget gap. While there have been several (too many to link here) articles from both sides about the effect tax increases have on the ecomonies affected, let's think about this from the perspective of a typical American family.

If you are making x amount per month but suddenly your expenses rise to x + y, can you really go to your company (where you get your money from) and demand more? If so, please drop me a line and let me know where you work so I can get into some of that action.

If you or I were in that situation where revenue was overrun by expenses, you either work more, spend less, or go into debt. California took the third option to the extreme and look at how that's going. I guess the state of California wouldn't qualify for one of those exclusive black AmEx cards now. That would certainly help as long as they paid more than the minimum payment.

Reuters: California misses budget deadline, readies "IOUs"