VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: California’s Rendezvous With Reality.

California’s progressive government seems clueless how to deal with these issues, given that solutions such as low-cost housing and strict enforcement of health codes are seen as either too expensive or politically incorrect.

In sum, California has no margin for error.

Spiraling entitlements, unwieldy pension costs, money wasted on high-speed rail, inadequate water storage and delivery, and lax immigration policies were formerly tolerable only because about 150,000 Californians paid huge but federally deductible state income taxes.

No more. Californians may have once derided the state’s 1 percent as selfish rich people. Now, they are praying that these heavily burdened taxpayers stay put and are willing to pay far more than what they had paid before.

That is the only way California can continue to spend money on projects that have not led to safe roads, plentiful water, good schools and safe streets.

A California reckoning is on the horizon, and it may not be pretty.

As H.L. Mencken said, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

And to prevent that fallout from eventually impacting states such as Nevada and Texas, as the middle class flee California, billionaire GOP contributors and libertarian-types like the Koch Brothers really need to get going on Glenn’s Welcome Wagon idea.