Not a bad deal. Tell your kids to enjoy their dark, diminished future that your voted for. But just think. You didn't have to pay taxes!

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Quit blaming CA's problems on citizens like myself. I am not to blame, THEY are. I LIVE FRUGAL! THEY don't! My property taxes were enough a few years back...why not now? It's ALWAYS more more more! It's NEVER enough! That is the problem...if it were "one more tax" FINE but they have been saying that for years!

And it's not like I don't feel it. I don't have such a high income I do not feel it. When they take more from me, that means less to charity (yes, I give!), Less to pay for someone to fix something in my house (create jobs!). I feel it deeply and resent their attitude like it's nothing to me. It is. It matters and I am sick of being a responsible citizen and being asked to give more and more when I did not create the problem!

I truly hope CA goes bankrupt to start over with reasonable social safety net and reasonable salaries and pensions. I hope the legislature gets fired and is extremely embarrassed (which they should be), they are horrible planners and only thought of the moment. It is THEY who must deal with this, for THEY created it.

Incidentally, I am not ruining my children's future...the Democratic legislature did. You are blaming the wrong person.

I would agree with you except that IF they (the Democrats) get tax hikes like they want, there is no way they will be FORCED to cut their largess.

Not so, actually: if tax hikes are put in place with a sunset clause- which is what I want to see, I think 4 years would be the outer limit- they would be forced to bring things around within the specified period of time, or else have this whole budget deficit fiasco repeat again.

And if the legislature weren't able to rein things in within that time period, I think that would lead to terrible damage to the California Democratic Party, probably reducing them to minority status in both houses.

Ironically, as long as the California Democrats can make a plausible argument that Republican obduracy is leading to stalemate and gridlock, I think they're relatively safe.

ONE BILLION dollars are spent by LA County alone on the children of illegal aliens. ONE BILLION dollars are spent by the state on illegal aliens in Ca. prisons. etc

Now, why do I doubt your cause is shelter animals - or that you run with a bunch of "left wing" friends.

You want to address the article? Quit makin' shit up and maybe I'd have more respect for your position.

Our national discourse began to go downhill in a big way when the right began to listen to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, et al. When Shrub was appointed, it's only picked up steam, and it does no one in this country any good. Intolerance for others is at an all time high. This ain't a football game folks. One of us loses, we ALL lose.

We used to care about each other, all that seems to have fallen by the wayside now. Would you at least look into some of the other points RE: what Enron's meeting w/the governor? That's 9 billion you ain't getting back. It's a damn sad commentary that some people feel the need to gloat about CA going broke.

Because, as others have rightly pointed out on this thread: it's coming to a town near you. Sooner than you might think.

One last thought on a couple of fellow Texans I see hear braggin' .... shut up, y'all, you are embarrassing me. Austin is about as overcrowded on their freeways now as any I've seen in LA. As usual, your alligator mouths overload your parakeet asses. Yeah, move to Texas if you like. It really is like a whole 'nother country.

I am so out of here. They can say good bye to me, a good tax paying citizen who doesn't take....because I want to go to some state that is responsible and good like me.

I've been reading sentiments like that from some other long-time California residents, too...however, many of them are natives, they've never lived in a state other than California. They don't have the perspective of living in other states, or other regions of the country. All they know is that things aren't as good as they remember, they seem to be on a downturn, and they're ready to bail.

All I can say is, good luck with finding a deal like this one. You may come to realize that you only think things have gone bad here because you've never lived anywhere else. Although I suppose it all depends on what you're looking for.

And bear in mind that a lot of other States owe most- if not all- of their low taxes and balanced budget to a low population density. What do you suppose is going to happen when they become the destination of a lot of residents from other states? And the locals often take a dim view of outsiders- Californians, in particular.

And you may have to get used to not smiling so much...a lot of other places in this country, people look at you funny when you do that. The relative lack of dynamism in some places can take some getting used to. I'm not knocking every other state- there are in fact several other regions of the country where I know that I could happily adapt. But I think it's important to choose carefully.

California is a state and cannot go bankrupt. It can default on its loans. That would be catastrophic. If California can't take out loans, or only at sky high interest rates, then California can't undertake large-scale capital-intensive projects (highways, schools, prisons, etc.). It would also make day to day operations difficult, since tax revenue the state pulls in isn't obtained at a constant flow over the course of the year, but in big chucks when filing deadlines approach. That would be very, very bad.