Reason has been all over this for years, but they’re evil libertarians who want to take over the government and then…leave everyone alone, so I guess we’ll have to ignore them.//

I’ll give you two places to start and then you can go through the numbers yourself.

Failed States
reason.com

In fiscal year 1990–91, California took in more than $38 billion in general fund revenues. In 2008–09 revenues are $102 billion. If the state had simply limited spending increases to the 4.4 percent annual average growth in consumer price index plus population, the state would be sitting on a $15 billion surplus this year instead of a $42 billion deficit.

A significant portion of California’s spending increase stems from the growth in state employees. Today there are more than 356,000 workers on California’s payroll, or 9.3 state employees for every 1,000 residents. The biggest hiring binges came during Gray Davis’ dot-com exuberance, and then again during the pre-recession Schwarzenegger administration (see Figure 5).

This increase in personnel is important because so much of the budget is devoted to employees’ wages and benefits, and because their pension benefits, which are locked into place for all current employees, are both colossal and precarious. The California Public Employees’ Retirement Security System, which until last year was the largest public pension fund in the United States, lost a staggering 20 percent of its value in just three months of 2008 (see “The Next Catastrophe,” February).

and:

10 Years of Union Ugly in CA
reason.com

and I’ll toss in a 3rd bonus which actually had me laughing out loud yesterday. There is a longish John Stossel video:

reason.com

On Feb. 11, Reason Editor in Chief Matt Welch and February cover boy Steven “Class War” Greenhut appeared on John Stossel’s weekly Fox Business Channel program to talk about the power and impact of public sector unions, and whether America on the whole is on a “road to serfdom.”