California borrows $40 million a day to pay unemployment insurance

With one in every eight workers unemployed and empty state coffers, California is borrowing billions of dollars from the federal government to pay unemployment insurance.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the state owes $8.6 billion already, and will have to come up with a $362-million payment to Washington by the end of next September.

The continued borrowing means federal unemployment insurance taxes are going to increase, upping the annual payroll costs $21 a year per worker.

So if you dislike the idea of bailing out California and you thought the new Congress would prevent it, it's already too lat

California's being called the Lindsay Lohan of states, but that may be an insult to Ms. Lohan, since she isn't bankrupt, but it certainly is true that it seems to be perversely resistant to fiscal sanity. I don't know if it's the public employees unions, illegal voting or the rich "progressives" (maybe all three), but the majority seems to have its voters convinced that all it needs is higher taxes, which they won't have to pay, to make all their dreams come true. It would be fascinating to know, for example, how Barbara Boxer keeps getting elected despite her fecklessness in Congress, her obvious lack brains and her ethical deficiencies.