Remember seeing those ads on TV lately touting California as a cool place to live? Phil Mickleson, on a green, saying “Its a long drive to work” or some bike-rider on a hill during a team ride saying “You’re always playing catch-up” or Vanessa Williams at Disneyland, amid Mickey and Goofy, saying “We work with a lot of characters”?
At the end, you have Maria Shriver and Ah-nold, sitting at a nice restaurant table, sipping wine, without a care in the world!
Maria: “If California seems like your kind of work…”
Ah-nold: “When can you start?”

What he DOESN’T tell you is….”…you may not get a tax refund for a while, though”.
California? No thank you very much.
By Patrick Healy
NBCBayArea.com
updated 5:19 p.m. ET, Thurs., Jan. 1, 2009
If you expect you’ll be getting a refund from California when you file your 2008 state income tax return, be prepared: you may instead receive a “registered warrant.” Translation: an IOU.
California is rapidly running out of money. Blame it on the state budget deficit that continues to bleed billions of dollars from California’s reserves. Facing inadequate credit to make up the difference, California’s Controller John Chiang warns that by the end of February, the nation’s most populous state may not be able to pay some of its debts, and instead be reduced to issuing those creditors IOUs.
“My office has projected that, in approximately 60 days, there will be insufficient cash available to meet all expenditures reflected in the 2008-09 Budget Act,” stated a Tuesday letter from Controller Chiang to the directors of all state agencies. “To ensure that the State can meet its obligations to schools, debt service, and others entitled to payment under the State Constitution, federal law, or court order. California may begin, as early as February 1, 2009, issuing registered warrants…commonly referred to as IOUs…to individuals and entities in lieu of regular payments.”
California has not resorted to IOUs since the 1992 budget crisis when Pete Wilson was governor. Back then, some 100,000 state employees got IOUs instead of paychecks for two months until the state approved a budget. The 1992 crisis came during summer, well past the tax season, but at least 12,000 tax refunds were also issued as IOUs, according to a contemporaneous report in the Los Angeles Times.