Well, the taxes in CA are extremely high. A typical 2M house in the penninsula will pay over 27000/year in taxes and that's not even counting income taxes. That's not even counting all the permiting fees, building fees, and countless other fees that developers need to pay, which are passed on to the consumer, and all the regulations which raise the cost of building in the first place.

Perhaps, you meant, we've given up on the ability of government to use those taxes for the greater good. I'd agree with that. for the last 50 years, If even a tiny fraction of those taxes were used to solve all the zoning and building regulations, we'd be in great shape right now.