Assembly Budget Committee Chairwoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, said the state should seek a federal guarantee for its bond debt. That would mean the federal government would ensure people who buy the state's bonds that it would repay them in the event California could not. That idea was dismissed last year by leaders in Washington. Spending that money, which already has been approved by voters, could create "thousands and thousands of jobs, and it would do it now," she said.

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