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If it can happen in Maine, I think it can surely happen in California

It can happen anywhere and it can happen for all the wrong reasons, especially in California because what people don't realize is that business will grow and prosper where it's welcome. Last year California lost 5.2% of its businesses and while the experts can't agree on a clear "why," I think that California has become more anti-business, anti-growth over the past few decades. I was born and raised in So. Cal and lived out there through the end of the 80s but even then it was still growing. Sure the recent recession has hit everybody but the decline in California is inevitable; Overpriced housing such as in Orange County means that even middle class wage earners have a very hard time of living there, which also helps to drive up the costs of labor. You can blame speculation on most of that but without mass transit and massive urban sprawl it creates huge amounts of gridlock. Add to it the anti-business legislation that's been passed and you have a perfect storm brewing over over-inflated housing prices, employees who can't get to work because of long commutes and an anti-business attitude and ranking highest in the nation on taxation in most categories, that makes California downright a sucky place to make a living and conduct business. As they say "it's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there."

This reminds me of when the county of Los Angeles tried to tax satellites. If it has any value to anyone in any way, they will tax it.

That said, taxes are the cost of a civil society.

As much as I disagree with you entirely... and I really mean the idea of wealth redistribution through taxation fucking infuriates me, your request for more interesting statistics is RIGHT on the dot!

From CA Commerce dept website:
- $1.4 Trillion Gross State Product
- Fifth largest economy in the world
- Largest state economy in the U.S.
- State's economy is 13% of GDP

Now, keep in mind that California has many EXTREMELY HIGH COST OF LIVING areas such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Silcion Valley, etc. These areas are responsible for a lot of income, but are also very expensive to live in. The federal tax system doesn't properly adjust to that. Where I grew up, making $100,000 a year meant you MIGHT be able to afford having your own house if you managed your money well. Other places I've lived, $40,000 a year was good money, you could own your own house and car, etc, and of course the federal tax burden on such an income is significantly lower.

So, I personally feel that living in california is a higher tax burden, despite what all the statistics seem to say! But here is a great link with information on that:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/443.html
spreadsheet here
Now THEY say we pay 19.6% of the federal taxes, which ranks us as #10.

But, and here is the big difference, California doesn't get it's share of federal money. In 2002, California paid $58 billion more to Washington than it received. This includes federal salaries in california, grants, etc. California only got 77% of the money back in some way. This is probably mostly attributable to the large base of defense contractors and some major military bases.

$58B might not sound like a lot of money for such a large state, but keep in mind the total state taxes paid every year totals to only $130B. If california received that extra $14B the budget would be balanced again.

I strongly recommend you also read http://www.caltax.org/research/taxburdn.htm which does a great job of explaining why the simple tax burden measurements used above are terribly ineffective.

A typical "Rich" family
To sum it all up, a family of five making $100,000 in Los Angeles (at least the area I lived) would be lucky to be able to purchase a home. Let's estimate about $600,000 for a decent home. With a downpayment of $100,000 (which would take a real long time to save up while renting for $2-3K/month), and a mortgage at the current average of 5.30%, they could come away with a 30-year mortgage at $2776/month. Keep in mind this is paying almost exactly $1,000,000 for a $600,000 home. Now, because their income is so high ($100K, very wealthy) they can expect to be in the upper tax bracket. Not just federally, but state-wise. This is because california has a progressive tax system, where the wealthy people (and $100K is wealthy, isn't it?) pay the majority of the taxes, in terms of a percentage of their income! All said and done, this family would require a skillfull tax advisor to get their annual tax burden down to $40,000. So now they have $60,000 left, of which they would already be paying ~$3000/month for their house (homeowner's insurance, etc.). So that leaves...
$100,00 - $40,000 - $24,000 = $36,000

Now, I'm going to go ahead and PRETEND that they don't have to pay for their own medical insurance. Wealthy people should pay for the medical insurance of those who make under $100,000 a year, not the other way around, RIGHT?

So let's go ahead and say this family needs two vehicles, both costing approx $20,000. So let's do a loan for $40,000, assuming the national average of 6.51% for a 48month loan. This comes out to payments of approx $949/month for both vehi

I think Arnie has helped quell some of the concern businesses had with previous governor Davis, and I do personally believe the State is getting back on track from some rather fiscally irresponsible years, but California does have wildly inflated property prices, high labor costs relative to other states, and an ever-growing illegal alien problem (which helps mitigate the expensive labor for manual labor jobs, but brings with it a high social services cost that must be borne by the citizens of the state).

Insurance companies have incentive to make it more efficient. Lower Costs = Higher Margins and that they can charge less so more people can buy health care from them so they get more money.

As for the welfare department problems?
http://da.co.la.ca.us/wf/conv.htm
http://www.caltax.org/Fraud.htm
http://www.angelfire.com/wa2/WRAP/WelfareFraud.htm l
http://www.svcn.com/archives/saratoganews/02.09.00 /indoor-gym-0006.html
http://da.co.la.ca.us/mr/120904a.htm

Medicare/Medicaid has similar fraud problems. You can look those up yourself. Try "Medicare and Fraud" or "Medicade and Fraud"

Given the money spent on welfare I could employ over 1.6 Million people at $30K/year and cut the unemployment rate significantly. As is, we are paying them to not work and stay unemployed.

As for including the Entire H&HS budget? It's cause Medicare/Medicaid is in there (and makes up most of it) and it is what we have been talking about here. And I notice that the amount spent on Medicare/caid is still greater than the DoD budget.

Smokers have become the serfs of the governments' feudal funding system.

-Lucas

Burglars have successfully sued homeowners for falling through a roof and injuring themselves whilst breaking into said house.

I believe this is a pseudo-urban-legend. Check this article. Scroll down to where it says "Tales of the Absurd". It says:

Ronald Reagan recounted how a cat burglar sued a homeowner for injuries incurred while falling through the homeowner's skylight. When the real case was identified, it turned out that the plaintiff was not a cat burglar at all. He was a high school student who had been sent to retrieve athletic equipment stored on the roof of the school and had fallen through a skylight that had been painted black.

And in a similar vein, this page says:

This particularly news story pointed out that the burglars were mere children, which made it even worse. The facts were these: a group of high school students were playing soccer (or whatever) near their school gym on a weekend. The gym --the entire school -- was closed. They managed to kick the ball up on the roof of the gym. Enterprising boys, they climbed up on the roof, which was clearly forbidden by posted signs. On the roof was a skylight, which had been painted over in the same color as the rest of the roof. The boys didn't notice the skylight, walked on it, and fell through it. THey were injured. The school was held liable for creating a hazard by painting over the skylight: even one of the maintenance staff who had walked on it during school hours would have risked the boys' fate.

A google search on the subject turns up MANY references to a case like this in California where a cat burglar fell through a painted skylight and won. Depending on which item you read he won either because the insurance company settled or because the jury felt the school had failed to make itself safe to burgle. Nobody, not even the article I linked to, provides specifics so one could verify that facts independently. I didn't even get a hit on snopes.

Another interesting hit a I did get is here. An analysis of california's 1996 prop 213 which refers, vaguely, to this court case. Again no specifics are given.