“Regrettably it will need a consumate politician (which Arnie was absolutely not) to square this circle and unravel the often criminal deception, playing the voting public, the politicians, and the unions off against each other.”
One of the biggest problems in CA is that all of those groups (voting public, politicians, and unions) still don’t accept the reality that the state is moving steadily towards de facto bankruptcy. Everyone is in denial about that possibility, in the same way so many people thought that a collapse in housing prices could never happen in California. I don’t know what more it can take to convince all the interest groups that CA can run out of cash and be forced to at least partially shut down schools and basic services when the state is unable to borrow more money at reasonable interest rates. I think all the interest groups are also in denial about the amount of middle-class flight out of CA that would result from a shut-down of basic services and what that departure of taxpayers would do to the state’s already disastrous fiscal situation.
Middle class flight. yes, I agree with you there. I had a business with repeat customers drawn from the middle and lower income groups. The lack of money took the lower income group, and the middle income group moved. At least half of my good customers went and so inevitably did my business.