Why is California's budget so wonky/why are they so deep in dept?

[John_Mace]

@SpoilerVirgin

California is Exhibit #1 for anyone who claims that we could solve the country’s problems with direct voting on more issues (or on the budget!) Representative government has its problems, as we’ve all seen from the gridlock in Congress and the California legislature, but letting the voting public make the state’s taxing and spending decisions has truly been a disaster.

Since this is GQ, I’ll just say… Preach it, bruthuh!!

[Mithras]

It certainly didn’t help that 10s of billions were lost to the Enron created energy crisis.