Under several terms of progressive leadership, Californias economy is imploding.
The state withheld an embarrassing audit for nearly an entire year past it's legal deadline.
It shows the state owes a quarter trillion *more* money than it has in available resources, and even if it liquidated all of its bonds, pensions, etc, it would still owe an additional $55 billion.
This is the power of progressive leadership
https://www.thecentersquare.com/california/article_4789f610-e6f1-11ee-992c-075b5196451e.htmlCalifornia audit finds state is broke: $55 billion more owed than available
California just filed its 2021-2022 audited financial statement, 350 days past the filing deadline. In its filing, the state admits that COVID-era unemployment fraud cost the state $29 billion that must be paid back to the federal government, and that in 2022, the state had $256 billion more in liabilities than it had in unrestricted resources.
After accounting for restricted resources, such as purpose-specific state trust funds and bonds, the state still owed $55 billion more than it had.
With massive stock market gains and unprecedented job growth in the high-earning tech field amid a post-pandemic recovery, 2022 was a year of great economic prosperity for California. However, for FY 2021-2022 the state nonetheless adopted a budget with $234 billion in spending from the general fund compared to $220 billion in revenue.
California faces a $73 billion deficit for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, to which the Democratic legislature has a proposal to cut this year’s budget by $2.1 billion and a proposal to spend $12 billion, or half the state’s rainy day fund. With the state reducing 2023 revenues are lower than expected. With a significant expansion of benefits, including expanding taxpayer-funded MediCal to all illegal immigrants, and a major shift in illegal immigration from heavily-enforced Texas to California instead, state expenditures could end up being higher than expected.