California is too large a state to be well-governed. Because of its size, it requires a big budget to campaign. As a result, the public sector unions dominate state politics. Democrats have had the majority in both houses of the state congress for 40 of the last 42 years - that gives you an idea of how dynamic our politics are.
In good economic times the legislature hikes union benefits and in bad times taxes are hiked to pay for benefits which are no longer affordable. We just passed prop 30 to increase our income taxes to the highest in the nation and most of the money behind the proposition was from unions. The $4 billion in revenue from prop 30 earmarked for schools will barely cover the state's shortfall in its teacher pension fund. Not a dime will go towards actually making the schools better.
California has the trifecta of suck - high taxes, bad services, and big deficits. That's what a state looks like when the government exists to serve its unions and not the people.
Others have pointed out the proposition system. Propositions do tend to be somewhat spastic - voters seldom balk at spending money on boondoggles like the high speed train that is supposed to be finished any decade now. But I don't think it is a huge problem. The proposition is one of the only outlets for non-liberal policies in the state, so I think it gets more hate and blame than it deserves.
> California is too large a state to be well-governed. Because of its size, it requires a big budget to campaign. As a result, the public sector unions dominate state politics. Democrats have had the majority in both houses of the state congress for 40 of the last 42 years - that gives you an idea of how dynamic our politics are.
This isn't really true. California's cities have some serious issues around allowing growth and development, and the state as a whole has a major problem because of Prop 13. See here: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/05/should-w... for more, although there are many other issues.
These problems aren't inherent with size; they're self-created.
In good economic times the legislature hikes union benefits and in bad times taxes are hiked to pay for benefits which are no longer affordable. We just passed prop 30 to increase our income taxes to the highest in the nation and most of the money behind the proposition was from unions. The $4 billion in revenue from prop 30 earmarked for schools will barely cover the state's shortfall in its teacher pension fund. Not a dime will go towards actually making the schools better.
California has the trifecta of suck - high taxes, bad services, and big deficits. That's what a state looks like when the government exists to serve its unions and not the people.
Others have pointed out the proposition system. Propositions do tend to be somewhat spastic - voters seldom balk at spending money on boondoggles like the high speed train that is supposed to be finished any decade now. But I don't think it is a huge problem. The proposition is one of the only outlets for non-liberal policies in the state, so I think it gets more hate and blame than it deserves.