Texas is another big tax donor state, yet they turn budget surpluses mostly. The difference is California doesn't bother to balance their out of control spending with their revenues.
Texas, though, doesn't contribute more to the US Budget than they get out, and... I hate to say this... Both GW Bush, and his predecessor in the Governors office did pretty good jobs managing the State.
During the Office of Rick Perry, they had some tremendous problems (I am from Texas, and technically, it is still a state of residence for some of my bills). Texas and California are however, the only two states (NY Possibly an exception, but only barely) that could really stand as an independent country in this day and age (They both did so in the past unde...
I would like to propose this as a thread for people to write in their predictions for the next year and the next decade, when practical with probabilities attached. I'll probably make some in the comments.