California's war on itself - Opinion - The Orange County Register

This article - California's war on itself - Opinion - The Orange County Register - nicely details the policies and their consequences that lead California to its current state, so to speak. It doesn't go into the philosophy behind these policies (a subject for a future post) but does explain the sequence of decisions leading up to the current crisis.

California's supposedly progressive economics have had profound demographic consequences. After serving as a beacon for millions of Americans, California now ranks second to New York – and just ahead of New Jersey – in the number of moving vans leaving the state. Between 2004 and 2007, 500,000 more Americans left California than arrived; in 2008, the net outflow reached 135,000, much of it to the very "dust bowl" states, like Oklahoma and Texas, from which many Californians trace their origins. California now has a lower percentage of people who moved there within the last year than any state except Michigan.