Yeah, we're not perfect but for all our problems, at least we've got WATER! We're shrinking, and we need well educated workers to rebuild the manufacturing base. Winters aren't the greatest, but you get used to them and summers are heavenly. Real estate is cheap, and varied. We've got world class higher education and it's still relatively affordable. Think about it.

I was born and raised in California. I witnessed the decline in schools after Prop 13. I watched the state choose again and again to underfund government yet ask much of it. And once I graduated from the University, I moved far away from there.

I still miss the natural beauty of California -- the mountains, the ocean, the forests, the deserts. Being able to drive to any climate you care for. I really do miss my first home state.

But I'm also very happy I got out before it got so much worse than it was when I left in '92. You couldn't pay me to live in that socio-economic-political system now.

But the natural environment...ahhh. That, I'll always miss. Along with the California of my youth, pre-Prop 13, when it had the best schools in the nation, and a vibrant public life.

Give the Republicans what they want.

Gut the social welfare system, make people pay for college their own damn selves, make them pay for health care.

One week of such a life and many californians will run back to the legislature agreeing to raise the taxes to pay for their luxuries.

Simply put, it is the problem of the people, they want services, but want someone else to pay for it. Arnold is correct, the people do not want higher taxes, at least not yet, forcing the state to live within their budget will force Californians and other states to wake up to the costs of their state benefits.

Once people realize that burdens must be shared for shared advantages, they will be more careful in what advantages they seek, and more willing to part with the cash to pay for them.

No one wants to hear about kids without healthcare, but no one wants to pay for it with higher taxes either. So the only way to solve this impass is to make people realize their desire for lower taxes have a cost, and then they will decide if they can live in a world with low taxes and low services.

Interesting article, right up to the end, where, for reasons probably having to do with the knee jerk reflex of journalistic "balance," Kamiya has to attribute blame to starry eyed leftists who. . . what? I have no idea, except that maybe they don't participate in fighting the fight? But what of all of those who do? And is alienation something limited to "leftists," as though there is much of left left in California, or in the US for that matter?

It's both ideologically pure and simple.

If the Republicans as Kamiya says are "walking oxymorons", that makes the big government Democrats even more oxymoronic, as big government has failed California and he's calling for more failed government. There is a big government winner though in California, the Mexican Government has won under Fox and Calderone, and Schwarzenegger and Co have been proven to be the cheap change chumps that they are as the American and Californian tax dollar vaporizes out there in Shangri La La land. To get ones house in order one must be in control of, be sovereign over, their house. Chaos isn't a plan of governance no matter how Progressive it sounds.

Don't misconstrue my comment. In fact, I was one of 5 people in the state who voted in favor of Prop A, extending the tax increase for two more years. I don't oppose taxes to pay for what society wants or needs. But unbridled democratic control is not the way. Case in point: remember last January while trying to balance the budget, some democrat was proposing a new program to give health insurance to all children in the state, in essence arguing that it was not going to be so expensive, and on top of an already colossal deficit, we would hardly notice it.

I also heard that almost 17 million people in the state (about 40% of the population) qualify for some form of medicaid. I have not been able to verify the figure, but if true, it would be an example of social services gone amok. Again, I do not oppose taxes, but I am not sure that the democrats in Sacramento recognize any limits.

Reading Kamiya and others one would believe that Californians live in a state of low taxation. Of course this notion is silly. In 2008, California ranked 6th of 50 states in total State/Local tax burden. Californians have lived with a higher tax burden than most of their fellow Americans for years. In the past ten years businesses have pulled up stakes to relocate in lower tax areas, population numbers have leveled, even declined at times and yet the legislature has continued to spend and spend. The problems Californians face are a harbinger of what the nation will soon face if the the big spenders in Washington fail to learn from this debacle. Of course, if states could only print their own money...hey, now there's an idea...competing currencies.

But the misbegotten ballot initiative idea has also been terribly abused by legislators eager to abdicate their responsibility to make tough decisions to the voters, who elected them and pay their salaries to make said difficult calls. Cases in point: the raft of propositions that failed in May that were intended to help balance the budget. Those were promoted by the governor and legislature to get them off the hook for cuts and tax increases.

But the legislature had to put those measures on the ballot (and hold an expensive special election) because the Super-Majority requirement has made it impossible for them to pass such legislation themselves.

I agree with those who say (fer Crissakes!) do away with the 75%-requirement to pass a budget; let the simple majority decide; let them pay whatever consequences (good or bad) at the next election.