In case you've been wondering who is to blame for the mess in California, I found this article that pretty much sums it up. One caveat, the article does not go far enough to place blame on those who have controlled the Assembly and Senate for much of the past forty years, namely the Democrats. After all, they're the ones who are responsible for spending and have grown the annual budget from roughly $70 billion twelve years ago to nearly $150 billion today. The entire article can be found on Forbes.com:
The findings:
1. Arnold Schwarzenegger
The Terminator came to power with the support of much of the middle class and business community. But since taking office, he's resembled not the single-minded character for which he's famous but rather someone with multiple personalities.
2. The Public Sector
Who needs an economy when you have fat pensions and almost unlimited political power? That's the mentality of California's 356,000 workers and their unions, who make up the best-organized, best-funded and most powerful interest group in the state.State government continued to expand in size even when anyone with a room-temperature IQ knew California was headed for a massive financial meltdown. Scattered layoffs and the short-term salary givebacks now being considered won't cure the core problem: an overgenerous retirement system. The unfunded liabilities for these employees' generous pensions are now estimated at over $200 billion.
3. The Environment
In California today, everyone who makes a buck in the private sector--from developers and manufacturers to energy producers and farmers--cringes in fear of draconian regulations in the name of protecting the environment. The activists don't much care, since they get their money from trust-funders and their nonprofits. The losers are California's middle and working classes, the people who drive trucks, who work in factories and warehouses or who have white-collar jobs tied to these industries.
4. The Business Community
This insanity has been enabled by a lack of strong opposition to it. One potential source--California's business leadership--has become progressively more feeble over the past generation. Some members of the business elite, like those who work in Hollywood and Silicon Valley, tend to be too self-referential and complacent to care about the bigger issues. Others have either given up or are afraid to oppose the dominant forces of the environmental activists and the public sector.
Theoretically, according to business consultant Larry Kosmont, business should be able to make a strong case, particularly with the growing Latino caucus in the legislature. "You have all these job losses in Latino districts represented by Latino legislators who don't realize what they are doing to their own people," he says. "They have forgotten there's an economy to think about."
5. Californians
The last hope lies with those of us still enamored with California. We have allowed ourselves to be ruled by a motley alliance of self-righteous zealots, fools and cowards; now we must do something. Some think the solution is reining in citizens' power by using the jury pool to staff a state convention, as proposed by the Bay Area Council, or finding ways to undermine the initiative system, which would remove critical checks on legislative power.
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