Not a pretty sight. The state is now bankrupt with a $23 billion dollar budget hole to plug (see earlier post called California running out of options)
So here is the question: shouldn't the Recovery Bill help with the problem? If you don't remember the Recovery Bill with all the federal money that's being spent, here is a reminder from the NY Times.
If you look at the amounts allocated to California under the Recovery Bill, it adds up to a nice chunk of change. Here is what our friends from the Eureka state are getting:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1dNKiKuBSL-TCryD6tvIeLSCloDgatO22gIld_c8nn_aFZfTmMJfqJbulkuwe7fm6Poq_CEtN_mw10eOFcCty7O9Q-UA6o5zwqyY_mCuFgk7gMyH_rpxR0LfG5_r7J9dLLsll9QamFLps/s400/California+Spending.png)
This should make a dent in the old budget problem, right? It turns out that it's too little too late. The Recovery Bill is scheduled to spend about $50 billion nationally in fiscal 2009. Below is the "handouts" schedule of the "easy come, easy go" taxpayer money. The point is this will take a while to get to California and the bigger issue still is what happens after they spend the Recovery Bill money.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8kf_EI60LHzVSObLOJj0q9ksswuTicxFL0xY1kDaWV71aJabDQQ0flets5UwqY6pnq2NOCaZ_m4EBctEJ7Td1uiemJSapiJ8brEQduvY09QgwIzPZ_cMXY38nZT64xLl5VhZid7vRCmeC/s400/Recovery+Act+Funds.png)