For 18 years, [California] has spent more than it has taken in. A lot more. Over that stretch, total spending grew 5.9% a year on average, to $144.5 billion. A general rule of thumb says states should increase spending no faster than the rate of growth in population plus inflation. Over the same period, California's population plus inflation grew just 4.4% a year, 25% slower than the actual budget.

According to a study earlier this year by the Reason Foundation, if the state had kept spending growth to 4.4%, instead of 5.9%, the state would today have a $15 billion surplus. Instead, in just the past three years, it has rung up deficits of $81 billion. This is the kind of fiscal profligacy one sees in Third World nations on the verge of collapse, not in the world's seventh-largest economy.