In Reply To:
Isn't it a little too convenient...
Blaming incompetence and mismanagement on someone else?
If your argument were true, wouldn't the competent, rational manager say, "We'd better put the spending brakes on here or we'll soon be bankrupt."
OK, I know I'll get slammed for this but here goes. It is absolutely ridiculous for Californians to blame their budget deficit on Davis. It is even more silly to blame oil companies. The citizens have no one to blame but themselves.
Although we are a representative republic rather than a pure democracy, in the long run the people will get what they want. Californians insisted on regulations that made it impractical to produce their own electricity. Californians insisted on spending huge amounts of money for ____________ (fill in the blank with large budget items). Californians want the government to provide more services than they are willing to pay for through taxes. It's really a simple equation and even the Terminator can't do anything about it until attitudes change.
The same logic goes for the historically large deficits faced by my own state and the federal government. Someone famous (deToqueville, maybe?) predicted this when the Consitution was being written and warned that the people would vote themselves into bankruptcy.