California could save millions in interest, thanks to a new and improved credit rating. Standard and Poor's has increased California's rating one notch. The state has been slowly climbing back up from a very low rating in 2003. Governor Schwarzenegger says the improvement is good news:
Schwarzenegger: The credit rating improvement that we have gotten means millions and millions of dollars for the California taxpayers because that means we pay less interest rate.
Finance Department spokesman H.D. Palmer says it's similar to each of our own individual credit ratings.
Palmer: How well you do on your credit ratings determines how much interest you're going to pay on things like a new car or if you go to buy a house. Same thing's true for the state of California. If we have a better credit rating, we're going to have a better interest rate when we go out to finance long-term infrastructure projects.
Palmer says if the $37 billion public works bond package is approved in November, the new rating will save the state tens of millions in interest.
