So California has been having a bit of trouble, of late, with regard to its budget. A lot of people have written a lot of good stuff on the subject, which I won’t go into here (linky linky link), but it boils down to three things:

1) The real estate bubble burst, leaving the economy in smoldering ruins.
2) California’s government is completely and utterly dysfunctional, having strict caps on property taxation and almost no ability to raise funds, thanks to an amendment to their Constitution pushed by good old Ronnie Reagan
3) Current Governator Ahhnold Schwarzenegger would rather slash the budget to the bone, steal money from cities and muncipalities, destroy the social safety net and sell public land than raise taxes on the ultra rich, even a smidgeon, even if he could. That’s ok though, because nothing bothers the soulless monster, so long as he can go home and relax in his jacuzzi. He helped drive the state broke faster, of course, being elected on a promise to slash one of the few taxes California had to pay its bills.
4) Due to this history of abuse and a total lack of leadership from California Democrats, the state had to come up with a variety of gimmicks in addition to these severe cuts to the budget and basic social services.

Oh, right, one more detail: California has decided to stop paying its debts and instead make up its own Monopoly-style currency. I call them Californiabucks.

Yes, that’s right. California, unable and unwilling to pay its bills, has decided to print what amount to post-dated government checks and pass them off to legitimate creditors, telling them, well, to suck on it otherwise.

A little background: some years ago, my roommate’s father opened a savings account for her to go to college with. He made a few small deposits, then forgot it existed; so did the rest of the family. A few months ago we got a junk mail flyer saying that, for a fee, some fly by night company would retrieve some unclaimed property from the State of California for us. We assumed it was some kind of fraud, but a little googling and web research revealed the existence of the long forgotten account, containing the princely sum or 295 dollars. My roommate filled out the proper forms, mailed them in, and we got confirmation in the mail that everything was kosher and soon we would be receiving this little pile of pirated educational booty. I was particularly glad to hear it, since I knew that the state of California was coming in just above Somalia in governmental efficiency of late, and I had just assumed they would spend her cash and ignore us entirely.

Then we get this letter from the California State Controller in the mail. It *looks* like a mailed check in a security envelope. It has that indelible scent of money money money. When you open it, you see what appears to be, in fact, a check, a delicious, state issued wad of cash.

Then you read the damn thing.

I’m not going to pretend this is a great personal tragedy for us. We were not depending on this money. We have enough to get by, we live in a nice building, the roomie drives a shiny Prius and we can afford tasty Wisconsin cheese. I merely have three comments.

First, it is grotesquely sad that the largest and most populous state in the country, and one of the world’s largest economies, has been utterly reduced by decades of inept government to making up play money and using it to pay debts.

Second, this is akin to the state seizing and holding the contents of your checking account hostage. This isn’t a tax return being delayed or a government program being slashed here, as bad as those are; in those hypothetical cases the government was legally authorized to have that money at one point, and merely keeps it too long. This was legal US tender put into a bank account, and now it’s being held against the wishes of its owner. So in effect this is a state-sponsored bank robbery.

Third, the state controller is a whiny, self-righteous little bitch. Seriously, read that letter that accompanied the notice of our robbery. Is he deeply apologetic and ashamed for stooping to brazen theft and fraud of savings accounts to stave off the inevitable? Does he feel a twinge of remorse for working under that inept steroidal headcase who has shepherded his state into the shallow grave it can now call home? Is he even now preparing to kill himself to atone for his abject and total failure, his complete betrayal of the public trust?

Hardly. Instead he whines about how tough his job is, and acts like he’s campaigning on what a great job he’s done so far.

Fuck you, man. If you had an ounce of integrity you’d open your belly with a sword, hang yourself from a convenient overhead beam, or just, you know, resign your salaried state position. Instead he decides to praise himself for his cleverness in robbing my roommate’s bank.

God. Some people.