Aside from selfishly wanting room for more local colleagues at my startup, it's my mission in life to preserve California as a refuge for persecuted LGBT people across the country. The best way to do that is to build more housing and stabilize rents, not to block sorely-needed high-density housing because there used be a historic gay bar there 50 years ago that few will remember.
A quick search revealed this too[2] (because I was curious about the impact "Hollywood" has on the economy):
> According to a recent report by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, motion picture and sound recording jobs accounted for just 2.4 percent of the private sector labor force in the city of L.A. in 2015.
(Note: I couldn't quickly find total Hollywood revenue, plus there's the "creative accounting" issue[3] too)
It's certainly a rabbit hole of data analysis.
[0] http://www.businessinsider.com/california-economy-ranks-5th-...
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/183822/gdp-of-the-los-an...
[2] http://www.laweekly.com/news/how-much-does-hollywood-contrib...
[3] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hollywood+creative+accounting&ia=w...
We're looking at a pretty substantial surplus for this year's budget, which will be finalized in June, and lawmakers have different ideas about what to do with it. Governor Brown wants to put it in the rainy day fund, conservatives largely want to enact tax relief for some Californians, and the state's liberal politicians largely want to spend it on other things.
Personally, I'd like if California used at least the bulk of it to pay down some of our unfunded liabilities with regards to pension programs, of which we still have about $275 billion (of over $400 billion in total debt). There are plans to take care of these over the next 3 decades, but settling it a bit earlier never hurt.
the last few years under governor Brown have led to a budget surplus for those years
[0] http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-jerry-brown-budge...
There is an underfunded pension but the payments aren't due for many years in the future.
California has a surplus now.
Projections are just projections and can be seriously wrong. A projected $2.8 billion surplus[0] quickly changed to being a $1.6 billion deficit[1].
[0] https://www.scpr.org/news/2016/11/17/66216/california-analys...
[1] http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-jerry-brown-budge...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/jerry-browns-legacy-a-6-1-billi...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/jerry-browns-legacy-a-6-1-billi...
California GDP: $2.7 trillion
I think California will be fine.
(Though, in the end, I agree with you.)