Out tax dollars at work - feeding off the Federal teat
A wonderful little bit of information -- from
The Economic Policy Journal:
32 States Have Borrowed from the Federal Government to Make Unemployment Payments; California Has Borrowed $7 Billion
EconomicPolicyJournal.com has learned that 32 states have run out funds to make unemployment benefit payments and that the federal government has been supplying these states with funds so that they can make their payments to the unemployed. In some cases, states have borrowed billions. As of May 20, the total balance outstanding by 32 states (and the Virgin Islands) is $37.8 billion.
The state of California has borrowed $6.9 billion. Michigan has borrowed $3.9 billion, Illinois $2.2 billion.
There are probably laws in place that allow for this sort of venture but if I was a commercial lending business and the state of California came to me, I sure as hell would not lend them money that they should have had in the first place. They are collecting taxes from the employers and employees to cover this event and these taxes should have been kept in a separate account and not touched for other projects.
I know that unemployment is a problem (it is a huge problem out where we live!) but this is nothing sudden -- if the state wanted to assume responsibility for providing this service, that agency should have done a better job of monitoring and adjusting the revenue stream.
Posted by DaveH at May 21, 2010 9:00 PM