PRESTOPUNDIT -- "An intense brain-buzz, guaranteed" (2blowhards)

Alan Reynolds does some math on state taxing and spending. Worth quoting:

From 1991 through 2001, state taxes rose by 4.2 percent a year in real, inflation-adjusted terms, according to the Tax Foundation. Real incomes of taxpayers rose more slowly, by 3.5 percent a year. In California, real incomes grew by only 3.2 percent a year, yet tax receipts grew by 5.4 percent a year. This was an unsustainable trend: State taxes could not possibly keep rising faster than taxpayers' incomes indefinitely, or taxpayers' after-tax incomes would fall continually until there was nothing left.

From 1999 to 2001, many states and cities made lavish spending plans on the basis of a temporary revenue windfall from stock options and capital gains. Spending by state and local governments rose 4 percent in 1996, 4.4 percent in 1997, 5.4 percent in 1998, 7 percent in 1999, 8.2 percent in 2000 and 8.1 percent in 2001. That, too, was an unsustainable trend: State and local spending could not keep rising by 8 percent a year because at that rate it would double every nine years and eventually account for 100 percent of GDP.

There's lots more on California and it's utterly unsustainable spend and tax policies.