I'm sorry, but if a bank won't accept it, you haven't been paid.
With the state preparing IOUs and anxiety mounting on Wall Street over the budget impasse, Steinberg said Democrats would back off on demands for tax hikes.
Blakeslee hailed that as a major breakthrough. "With that off the table, more meaningful progress will happen," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.
...and that's exactly what got the state in the mess it's currently in. Maybe they need a barter system.
Unfortunately, the people of California vote like the state can get screwed without they themselves getting screwed, too.
Hope for California budget deal as IOUs planned
By Jim Christie
Reuters
Friday, July 3, 2009 12:42 AM
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Top California lawmakers raised hope on Thursday that an elusive budget deal could be at hand, as officials began issuing billions of dollars in "IOUs" to avoid a cash crisis on the second day of a new fiscal year without an agreement to balance the state's books.
"I think there is at least a 50-50 chance that we'll find a solution that is acceptable to all parties within a week," Assembly Republican Leader Sam Blakeslee said after the state Senate's top Democrat said Democrats would no longer hold out for tax increases as part of a budget agreement.
California faces a financial stranglehold after lawmakers failed to balance the budget by the start of the state's new fiscal year on Wednesday, leaving a $26.3 billion deficit and prompting Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to declare a fiscal emergency.
He minced no words on Thursday in lambasting lawmakers for their failure.
"In four weeks, in the last four weeks, instead of negotiating and coming to a budget agreement, they decided to debate and to debate and to have hearings and more debates and more hearings and finger-pointing and assigning blame. At the end of the day, they haven't accomplished anything," Schwarzenegger said at a press conference in Los Angeles.
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Newsvine
Furl
Google
Yahoo
