During 2009, the California state government whined that they did not have enough tax money to pay their bills. Rather than eliminate some of the unnecessary government agencies, management, or employees, and rather than reduce the salaries of some of the management, the government officials decided to give IOUs to some of the businesses and taxpayers that they owed money to.

The government officials also told their employees that they did not have enough money to provide them with birthday cards that year. I have a brilliant idea to solve that problem: provide "birthday card IOUs" to the employees!

The government could create a new agency - the Department Of Cards - to create and email birthday cards IOUs to the other government employees. A sample IOU is below. This agency will also reduce unemployment by providing more government jobs for more unemployable people.