Washington declines to help California, at least for now

Administration officials say the state can do more to solve the budget crisis on its own, they don't have the authority to help -- and if they did, it would set a dangerous precedent.

By Peter Nicholas and Richard Simon
LA Times
May 22, 2009

Reporting from Washington — California needs to solve its financial crisis by itself and should not expect an emergency bailout from the White House, an array of Obama administration officials said Thursday, making clear they had no appetite to step in and provide financial assistance or loan guarantees.

"Look, we're going to examine what we can do. What we need to do, however, is to treat states fairly and that means uniformly," David Axelrod, senior advisor to the president, said in an interview. "Whatever we do for one state, there will be other states who also will want to do that. And there's a limit to what the government can do."

Axelrod indicated that federal intervention on California's behalf would set a dangerous precedent.

"There's no doubt that there are states all over this country who have problems -- not problems the size of California -- but significant problems. And every governor in the country wants and needs assistance," he said.

(More here.)