Last year the single largest line item in the State Budget is to give everyone free money, $1.4 billion. Of that, $400 million was then sent to the federal government in the form of federal taxes. So the state spent $1.4 billion to get $1 billion into the hands of its residents. And we are essentially broke. And everyone wants to continue to give away "free" money. 

The state has a $4 billion budget hole, of that one third is giving away free money in the form of a "dividend". In no other place in the world would a responsible party continue to give a dividend when it was facing such a budget deficit. 

Do regional corporations give "dividends" to their shareholders when they have no positive cash flow? 

Thanks Mike for writing this article.