California Dreaming: Missing America's Wake-Up Call

Forbes reports:

California, with 12% of the U.S. population, has nearly a one-third of the nation's welfare recipients--15.3% of all Californians live in poverty. Its budget gap for 2009 to 2010 ($45 billion) equaled 53% of total state spending. This occurred despite having the nation's highest state sales tax and third-highest income tax.

Texas benefits from California's population and business migrations; the state has realized 70% of all new U.S. job growth since 2008. Texas also has the greatest proportion of the country's 500 largest companies headquartered there (65, compared with 56 in New York and 51 in California).