Of course, the shift away from property to excise, income and capital-gains tax have decided deep political motivations that were the source of the problems and cannot be ignored in seeking a way out of the morass. In a form of double jeopardy, ideological thinking of the ’70s, ’80s and 90’s displaced logical analysis in both political parties – as if the laws of economics could be modified by majority vote, political will, arguments, and persuasion (they can’t) and celebrity, independent of competent experience, were sufficient credentials for office (it isn’t). Fighting the latter impulses, while difficult, offers some hope of revival while accepting them as inevitable makes catastrophe inevitable.

As with the national political parties, the state parties are operating in two parallel universes that make little or no contact with each other (the ideological approaches) with each seeking its own goal no regard to the economic consequences in one case and no regard to the social consequences in the other. The author rightly cites the bubble-to-bubble gymnastics that both parties have been exhibiting – to try to serve both masters simultaneously, while merely picking at the opposition’s short-sightedness when they sense an opportunity to garner a few more swing voters. Given that both are populated with ideological demagogues of featherweight competence, the worst solution would be compromise, the standard fall-back solution for any two rational parties and democratic government. Compromising two irrational systems of thought and policy does not produce either rational thought or policy, but only greater irrationality.

That’s the problem as I see it and I’ll leave the listing of the ideological contradictions for another time and place.

I could keep on going, lets stop talking about people that don’t have anything to do how this country runs is MY GOVERMENT that f#7k up. Im sure my neighbor John wouldn’t like to work on the valley for $8 the hour under the son picking tomatoes and guess what he is loosing his house and recently got laid off from work. Guess what he said…. I’m going to milk the system before I start looking for a job…. ?…. This smart answer came from a Computer Engineer.. WTF? He also like many of us blame all in the illegals, blacks and low income people. Think again we all suffer and the CEOs are laughin at all of us, they eat, sleep and travel as much as they want and we can’t even take our kids to Disneyland because gas prices are high..

Who wants to be real?

California is a disaster and needs to be fixed pronto. I wouldn’t live there myself. Enough of supporting the non legal people on the dole though, that should be outlawed right now! My aunt works for the state and she verifies illegals get benefits before legal citizens. Shameful!!!!

You can move out of state, or you can fight this system. What’s happening here is going to happen elsewhere, the temptations are just too great to the politicians. Elect responsible officials who are committed to solving this problem. Starve the beast by becoming self sufficient in many things and cut spending as much as possible. Barter and “earn income” in non-cash ways. Go “off the financial grid”. It’s much more convenient for a state to tax money than to take actual property.

Really? The problem is located in sacramento. The solution is legislators acting ina conservative and prudent fashion, starting with a 50% cut in expenses. REpeaking any manny of dumb laws would be helpful too.