I agreed with the overwhelming majority of this article.

However one serious ommision is the fact that NO ONE who makes $650,000/yr pays $295,000 in income taxes in the US.

That byzantine tax structure is basically in place to insure this.

Personally, I'm a lefty, and I will be the first in line to say that the government of California is massively corrupt. Government is a monopoly, and as such it needs major public review and restrictions in place to prevent corruption. We don't have those review processes, and we don't have those restrictions.

A message to the author: If you think you're getting a bad deal for your taxes in California, try out a red state for size, where you get basically nothing for your tax dollars.