From MarketWatch:
California Treasurer Bill Lockyer asked U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Wednesday to authorize assistance for his state from the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program, warning that depressed tax revenues may cut into basic services and halt the building of infrastructure.In a letter, Lockyer asked Geithner for TARP assistance for California and "other financially strapped states and local governments which face a severe cash flow crunch."
"If we cannot obtain our usual short-term cash-flow borrowings, there could be devastating impacts on the ability of the State or other governments to provide essential services to their citizens," Lockyer wrote.
In particular, Lockyer cited fire and police protection, education and social services.
No credit
In addition, Lockyer warned in the letter that California's cash flow problems may lead to trouble accessing the long-term bond market, which could "eventually even halt our infrastructure construction programs."
Lockyer estimated that California's cash flow shortfall in fiscal 2009-2010 will be more than $13 billion....MORE
*From Wikipedia:
...For many years a soldier's daily pay, before stoppages - was the shilling given as an earnest payment to recruits of the British army and the Royal Navy of the 18th and 19th centuries. The expression "to take the King's shilling" (or the Queen's shilling) meant that a man agreed to serve as a soldier or sailor.
Recruiters of the time used all sorts of tricks, most involving strong drink, to press the shilling on unsuspecting victims. The man did not formally become a soldier until attested before a Justice of the Peace, and could still escape his fate by paying his recruiter "smart money" before attestation. In the 1840's this amounted to £1 (twenty shillings), a sum most recruits were unlikely to have at hand....
