Nor is there any evidence whatsoever that deficit spending harms overall growth. In fact, deficit spending is utterly indispensable for optimizing growth.
More importantly, most of California's spending is not to drive growth, but to keep its head above water. Investment is one thing, but never borrow to pay operating expenses if you can help it.
The comparison with Venezuela isn't all that off the mark, structurally. Venezuela also spent dramatically on social programs and redistribution because it could, with an extremely lucrative source of foreign cash. When the gravy train dried up, the whole system collapsed, which is probably what'll happen to California when the tech & entertainment industries dry up (and did happen in 2001 in the wake of the dot-com bust). California probably has several decades before there's a reckoning though: networks of human capital like you have in Silicon Valley and Hollywood are difficult to move or replicate elsewhere.