California Financial Crisis Mirrors What Bush Is Leaving Obama

I've already acclimated myself to the reality of a Schwarzenegger financial disaster in California not unlike Bush's in the rest of America. I'm not getting a state tax refund this year; just an IOU. The state Controller, a good guy, John Chiang said he's got no choice but to suspend $3.7 billion worth of tax refunds, welfare checks, student grants and other payments owed to Californians starting Feb. 1 because of the cash crisis the state is facing. There's a $42 billion budget deficit.

I can handle not getting my tax refund. I feel a lot less comfortable about the $300 million in cash grants for needy families and the aged, blind and disabled and $13 million in grants for college students. With unemployment soaring and with more and more families using up their unemployment insurance-- even with the extension-- a strong safety net is more needed than normally. But there isn't one.

Any why not, you wonder. In today's Washington Post there was a report by Carol Leonnig about how some of our biggest corporations avoiding their share of taxes by using off shore banking havens. "Some?" Well... actually most.

A majority of America's largest publicly traded companies and the U.S. government's largest federal contractors-- including some receiving millions in federal bailout money-- use multiple subsidiaries in offshore tax havens to conduct business and avoid paying U.S. taxes, a new report finds.

The new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, released today by Sens. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), lists Citigroup and Morgan Stanley as having set up hundreds of tax haven subsidiaries, along with American International Group and Bank of America. Also in the tax-haven list are well-known companies and such federal contractors as American Express, Pepsi and Caterpillar.

How big of a deal are we talking? Dorgan and Levin estimate this crap is costing the federal government around $100 billion each year. Now you know me with the capital punishment. But I swear, shoot a couple banksters and CEOs and this just will stop happening. Oh, and confiscate all their assets too. You remember the Members? They warned us back in 1978 with this Steve Lillywhite-produced song, written by Jean Marie Carroll, a former banker himself:



Thanks to David B in comments-- we have an updated version by Carroll.