What went wrong in California? I think we can all agree on at least three observations.

First, California is by nature the most richly endowed region in the world. Nowhere else is there so much fertile land, watered by gravity-fed winter runoff from the majestic Sierra. California has ample supplies of oil and natural gas. Millions of acres of timber abound in its coastal and mountain forests. Temperate climate and weather allow outdoor activity almost year round. The coastline is over 1,300 miles long — with two of the great natural ports of the world at Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay. 

Second, prior can-do generations of Californians created an unparalleled infrastructure of dams, canals, and hydroelectric generation that once provided the state with ample energy, irrigation, and recreation. Its three-tier higher education system — 110 junior colleges, 23 state universities, and ten University of California campuses — once ensured a literate populace.

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We associate Hollywood with the world’s motion-picture industry. Napa Valley tops the wines of France. Silicon Valley fueled the high-tech revolution that gave us Apple, Google, Hewitt-Packard, Intel, and Yahoo. Millions of tourists each year flock to Disneyland, Death Valley, Kings Canyon, Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, and Yosemite.

California remains America’s richest farming state, leading the nation in fresh fruit, vegetable, nut, and dairy production. In other words, the present generation enjoyed quite a head start on their lives through the work and investment of often forgotten predecessors.

The final observation we can agree on is that something has gone drastically wrong in the state over the last two decades.

California managed to achieve all at once the nation’s highest sales and income tax rates — and yet also the largest annual state deficit. So far under Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s tenure, state spending grew by 34.9 percent, well beyond inflation — and of population, which increased by only 21.5 percent. And yet the governor often prevented the state legislature from spending even more it didn’t have.

The budgets of Medi-Cal, the state-run health program for the poor, are out of control. Prison costs increased by about 50 percent in less than a decade, and now claim almost 10 percent of state spending — almost as much as higher education. 

The state is in its third year of drought. Billions of dollars of agricultural production are threatened by water cut-offs. Yet California hasn’t build a major dam or canal in years.