New at Reason: Tim Cavanaugh on California’s Economic Troubles

February 25, 2011

“We’ve been living in Fantasyland,” incoming California Gov. Jerry Brown announced in a December forum on the state’s dire budget situation. “It is much worse than I thought. I’m shocked.” But there is a bright spot, writes Senior Editor Tim Cavanaugh. California provides a pure test case of interventionist economics in the United States. With effective one-party rule under the Democrats, the most restrictive environmental laws in the country, a rapidly growing public sector, and regulations on virtually every aspect of human behavior, the Golden State is the perfect laboratory for the managed economy the rest of the country rejected in November.

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