Life in "Progress" state

They called it Paradise
I don't know why
Somebody laid the mountains low
While the town got high

From the golden state of California, who hasn't had a conservative in state government since the summer of love.........

Just days before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislators finalized a water package, including an $11.1 billion bond issue, state Treasurer Bill Lockyer warned them not to do it.

California is already deeply in debt, Lockyer warned, has huge budget deficits and can't afford another big bond issue.

"The days of blithely heaping more and more debt burden on the general fund are over – at least they should be," Lockyer said.

The earmark-laden bond issue, the package's single most controversial element, raises an interesting question: Just how deeply in debt are our state and local governments?

The answer: No one knows for certain, since debt is scattered through myriad agencies in many forms, but well over a half-trillion dollars is a fair estimate.

Lockyer's warning pertained to the state's "general obligation debt," which currently stands at $59 billion, and there are an additional $50-plus billion in general obligation bonds that have not yet been sold. The biggest chunks of debt, however, are the unfunded obligations for pensions and health care of retired public employees.

The latest annual pension report from the state controller covers 2006, when the unfunded liability was $64 billion. But since then, state and local pension funds have lost at least $150 billion on investments, so a reasonable estimate of today's unfunded liability is $200-plus billion. A state commission, meanwhile, says the state-local liability for retiree health care is about $100 billion.

No one keeps complete data on local government general obligation debt, but it appears to be roughly the same as the state's, perhaps $50 billion, plus several billion dollars in debt incurred by local redevelopment agencies.

Last night, the Lovely Mrs. Gekko (my no drama mama) and I were doing our weekly run to our local Mexican restaurant and started a conversation with our server about his travels.

Here's a man who was born in Tijuana, lived in California for six years and in his opinion "California is a horrible place to live" amongst other observations.

What's so "progressive" about insolvency?

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