Hacker News Reader

That in itself is not a signal of responsibility. You could have increased revenues or cut the wrong programs.

That's thanks to the Federal Congress and Jerome Powell, not to California's supposed fiscal prudence.

California has benefited from the Federal spending bonanza and also has famously high tax rates, treats capital gains as ordinary income, and has a lot of rich people. The FTB seems to have screwed up the links[1] and I can't find later data for a complete fiscal year, but check out "Ordinary Dividends" and "Capital Gain" in exhibit A9 for FY2019[2] to get a sense of how important that is to the state budget.

[1]: https://data.ftb.ca.gov/stories/s/Other-Tax-Data/sgxz-494k#d... [2]: https://data.ftb.ca.gov/download/d6s8-gyup/application%2Fpdf

That surplus was on made on extra taxes collected, and not on lean government spending.

I love this state’s geography and food scene, but the various governments here (local, county, state) aren’t exactly the pinnacle of smart governance.