California Nightmare

While New York is starting to look like a banana republic with it's ridiculous taxes, permanent deadbeat underclass and state government filled with asshats, it could be worse. It could be California. It's hard to believe that a state with so much to offer in natural resources, beautiful landscapes and large centers of commerce could be such a crappy place to live.

Guess who's to blame?

Much of the blame lies with public employee unions and a handful of other special-interest groups that have essentially hijacked political control of state and local governments. Now, despite decades of high taxes and rapid growth, state and local governments find that they not only don't have the revenue to provide even basic services, but are saddled with hundreds of billions of dollars in unfunded pension liabilities and infrastructure needs.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/24/AR2009032403203.html?sid=ST2009032403206