# Why is California always nearly bankrupt? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 28, 2014, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-california-always-nearly-bankrupt/696788 "2014-08-28T20:12:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2014, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-california-always-nearly-bankrupt/696788/61 "2014-08-30T18:40:55Z")
I believe the Dems have a supermajority by one hard-won seat. It’s crazy-stupid they need to have this just to govern responsibly, but it’s a fact. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2014, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-california-always-nearly-bankrupt/696788/62 "2014-08-30T18:47:42Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > Really, where do people get the idea that California has been run by Democrats for ages? It may be true now, but even in the fairly recent past, most governors have been Republican. I think it might be because California has, since the early 1990s, consistently given its electoral college votes to the Democratic candidate in presidential elections. There are plenty of Americans without enough space in their brains to retain any more information than that. I think it’s also one of those cases where conservatives sometimes have a very convenient selective memory. So, Jerry Brown is currently governor, and Democrats currently have a majority in Sacramento, which means that Democrats must be responsible for everything that has gone wrong in the state as far back as anyone can remember. It’s the same mentality that holds Obama responsible for the mortgage crisis and subsequent recession. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2014, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-california-always-nearly-bankrupt/696788/63 "2014-08-30T19:34:30Z")
Then fold in the fact that Brown was governor _before_, and it becomes a multi-decade Democratic plot. Wait, Brown’s father was governor too! They’re all in on it! One well-placed neutron device could solve a lot of California’s problems. I’m thinking the top of the Matterhorn at Disneyland, right smack in the middle of Orange County. If we time it for an Angels home stand, hosting the Yankees, we can solve any number of problems all at once. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2014, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-california-always-nearly-bankrupt/696788/64 "2014-08-30T21:37:53Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Then fold in the fact that Brown was governor _before_, and it becomes a multi-decade Democratic plot. Wait, Brown’s father was governor too! They’re all in on it! > > One well-placed neutron device could solve a lot of California’s problems. I’m thinking the top of the Matterhorn at Disneyland, right smack in the middle of Orange County. If we time it for an Angels home stand, hosting the Yankees, we can solve any number of problems all at once. 😉 You got the location wrong. Place the device right above the Capitol building in Sacto. As a group our elected officials have never met a spending bill they don’t fucking love. Hell this extends to the Governor who wants to build a high Speed Cho-Cho that will cost zillions of dollars, go from nowhere to nowhere and never pay for itself. The LA Times had a great article last week on how fucked up this is, and that paper is very Democratic leaning. If the LA Times says a Democrat’s pet program is fucked up, then things are REALLY fucked up. I have never met a citizen of California that thinks the Gov’s Cho-Cho is a good idea. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2014, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-california-always-nearly-bankrupt/696788/65 "2014-08-30T21:48:12Z")
Can we stipulate, for the sake of this discussion, that the high-speed rail line might be a bad idea, and not simply use it as a proxy for every whining, bitching, content-free sideswipe at state spending? If your only contribution to a discussion of the California budget is, “Yeah, well HIGH SPEED RAIL BOONDOGGLE,” you might want to leave the discussion to people with a better grasp of nuance and complexity. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2014, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-california-always-nearly-bankrupt/696788/66 "2014-08-30T22:09:35Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > I have never met a citizen of California that thinks the Gov’s Cho-Cho is a good idea. Yet, shockingly, [they voted for it](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_1A_(2008)) ;). Now, I didn’t. But many of my friends and co-workers did and gently mocked me for not doing so. Infrastructure good! Remember this idea did not originate in Jerry Brown’s fertile little mind, but predates his adminstration by several years. He just has hopped aboard the train since gaining office ( again ). ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2014, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-california-always-nearly-bankrupt/696788/67 "2014-08-30T23:52:37Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > If we simply reverted spending to what it was just 2 years ago or better yet, 5 years ago, we’d have surplus out the wazoo. So yes, I see this as primarily a spending problem. I know I’m paying near 10% in state income taxes on top of the over 10% in sales taxes on top of all the federal taxes. And we’ve decided a good use of funds is to build a fucking bullet train. If I could vote to make raising taxes require an 80% majority I’d do it in a heartbeat. Once raising taxes is off the table, maybe the state will get it’s shit together and reduce spending. So what do you want to cut? More state employees fired? Fewer teachers? Higher tuition at state universities? To save money, San Jose cut the hell out of police salaries. Surprise, crime is way up, especially because cops on things like special gang squads now have to patrol. Considering the crap I see on the freeways, we sure could use more state troopers as it is. And when there was a surplus before the recession - and there was - the polls showed that Californians wanted more money for schools so we wouldn’t be so close to the bottom in per capita spending. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2014, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-california-always-nearly-bankrupt/696788/68 "2014-08-30T23:57:48Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Can we stipulate, for the sake of this discussion, that the high-speed rail line might be a bad idea, and not simply use it as a proxy for every whining, bitching, content-free sideswipe at state spending? > > If your only contribution to a discussion of the California budget is, “Yeah, well HIGH SPEED RAIL BOONDOGGLE,” you might want to leave the discussion to people with a better grasp of nuance and complexity. I used that as one current example of how our elected officials can out spend any amount of money they are given. Give them a million they will spend two. They have proved that over and over again. It happens with locals too. Want examples or can we stipulate that this is true? ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2014, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-california-always-nearly-bankrupt/696788/69 "2014-08-31T00:07:12Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Yet, shockingly, [they voted for it](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_1A_(2008)) ;). Now, I didn’t. But many of my friends and co-workers did and gently mocked me for not doing so. Infrastructure good! > > Remember this idea did not originate in Jerry Brown’s fertile little mind, but predates his adminstration by several years. He just has hopped aboard the train since gaining office ( again ). Didn’t read your cite very closely I see > [@](#): > > but the state legislature enacted Assembly Bill 3034, which replaced that measure with an updated proposal called Proposition 1A oh look this 10 Billion waste came from the legislature. You know those overspending idiots in Sacto Furthermore if you read a bit further in your cite > [@](#): > > Soon after passage of the initiative in 2008, cost estimates almost tripled, ridership projections fell significantly, and the estimated time of travel along the length of the project doubled.[3] By March 2013, according to a Public Policy Institute of California poll, only 43 percent of likely voters supported the project, a decline of 10 percent from when the measure passed in 2008. Great on top of everything else they cooked the books to drum up support for this piece of shit idea. Now that the real numbers are out their support has gone bye bye. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2014, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-california-always-nearly-bankrupt/696788/70 "2014-08-31T00:15:29Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > Didn’t read your cite very closely I see No, I did :). Nothing you noted really contradicts anything I said. I never claimed the legislature wasn’t at fault, nor the governor. Just that this is a long-germinating issue that preceded Brown and that it got voted in at one point by a popular vote I don’t know if any claims about book-cooking is true ( I tend to doubt it, though you never know ), but any long-term observer of large infrastructure projects should have assumed large cost increases over initial estimates. Oddly enough these things never seem to get cheaper on second look. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2014, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-california-always-nearly-bankrupt/696788/71 "2014-08-31T00:46:38Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > No, I did :). Nothing you noted really contradicts anything I said. I never claimed the legislature wasn’t at fault, nor the governor. Just that this is a long-germinating issue that preceded Brown and that it got voted in at one point by a popular vote > > I don’t know if any claims about book-cooking is true ( I tend to doubt it, though you never know ), but any long-term observer of large infrastructure projects should have assumed large cost increases over initial estimates. Oddly enough these things never seem to get cheaper on second look. The cost projections don’t really surprise, shock, or get me particularly pissed. This however: > [@](#): > > ridership projections fell significantly, and the estimated time of travel along the length of the project doubled. pisses the shit out of me. They gave us projections that were pure blue sky bullshit. If they were selling stocks what they did would violate the law. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-california-always-nearly-bankrupt/696788.md?page=3)