California struggling with budget deficit

Had large surplus from Covid and other Federal relief, but spent it all on increasing entitlements and climate spending...

The California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO), a government agency that analyzes the budget for the state legislature, estimates in a report published last week that Newsom’s forecast undershot the mark by about $7 billion, thanks to about $10 billion less in tax revenues than expected.

“In particular, using recent revenue collections and economic data, we estimate there is a two‑in‑three chance that state revenues will be lower than the governor’s budget estimates for 2022‑23 and 2023‑24,” writes Gabe Patek, the legislature’s budget analyst. “Our best estimate is that revenues for these two years will be roughly $10 billion lower — implying a larger budget problem by about $7 billion.”

On top of this, California is supposedly looking at literally paying black people reparations. This (of course) would cost the state hundreds of billions of dollars depending on the amount. Rumor has it that they would like "federal" assistance to pay this out. Not sure what la-la land they live in, but this is not happening federally. Not in our lifetime.

So what is causing their issues? Mostly spending and the fact that 40% of their revenue comes from the top 0.5% of their population, many of whom are leaving. But of course, California is attempting to pass laws to tax people "after" they leave the state, but I have questions about the constitutionality of such a law.

But ultimately other than the large amounts of federal relief from Covid, their revenue stream has not been hit as bad. But they just keep spending like drunken sailors.