The bill's now coming due. California’s economy is a wreck, residents are fleeing the state, and state workers are being laid off -- not that anyone will notice.

In 2008, more people left the state than moved in for the fourth year in a row, according to the California Department of Finance. In the last fiscal year, 135,173 more people left the state than moved in from elsewhere. Many residents are heading for Nevada and Texas, neither of which has a state income tax -- a welcome relief from California’s continued gouging.

California’s fiscal incontinence is sure to harm the University of California, once the nation’s top state university system and a key driver of the state’s economy.

The state’s voters have had enough. Last spring, they rejected, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, the political mandarins’ proposal to boost taxes another $16 billion. The usual suspects: teachers unions, business leaders, and pols, outspent opponents by 6 to 1, and took it on the chin. Plan B appears to be a federal bailout, a short-term solution that won’t fix the underlying problem.

The Wall Street Journal reported:

“…Thirty years ago this November, when California's economy was in a similar rut, three-quarters of the voters approved the famous Gann Amendment. That limited the annual growth rate of spending to population growth and inflation.

“The result was that California's annual average rate of spending growth after inflation fell to 2% through the 1980s from 9% in the 1970s. California's state per-capita expenditures fell to sixteenth in the nation in 1990 from seventh in 1979. The economy soared, growing by 121% -- 14% faster than the US average. The Gann limits were effectively neutered in 1988 and 1990 by initiatives that exempted education and transportation from the cap.”

Meg Whitman, the whiz who built eBay (EBAY) into a powerhouse, is making noises about running for governor. State government is certainly in need of some adult supervision, but it’s not yet clear that Whitman has any political skills.

If you want to be downbeat, study the current mess in California to understand where the nation as a whole will be in a few years if current spending continues.

The upside: If California legalizes marijuana with the idea of growing fat off the tax revenue, we’ll never again have to ask what those bozos in Sacramento are smoking.