This state's politics are ridiculous, primarily because of a belief that we can have low taxes and high quality services. Prop 13's passage in 1978 was an attempt to protect the privilege of white suburbanites by imposing austerity on everyone else. It was intended to break liberal government.

What we're witnessing now is the delayed outcome of that vote. In the meantime, successive asset bubbles were used to provide the illusion of balanced budgets and prosperity, with the collusion of Democratic legislators and Republican governors. That policy is no longer tenable, but until now, the desire to have a political coalition of the Democratic legislature and the Republican executive has remained, usually meaning Democrats have acquiesced to austerity.

And the world will live as one