For schooling, Prop 13 is an even bigger issue. Even though property taxes are high for new buyers, schools are underfunded. Parents essentially are paying higher taxes in the form of fundraising to support science and other enrichment classes, which cannot be supported by the state. There were somewhat noble ideas behind Prop 13, but essentially what we have in California, is that newer residents of Californa bear a disproportionate amount of the burden.
As for pensions, you say unsustainable promises, I say stealing from people who took cash later instead of cash immediately. Consider your last boss deciding to reach into your checking account and take $40k out because the business retroactively decided they overpaid.
According to this http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2016CAbs_1... pensions are 36.9/208.2 = 18% of the state budget.
It's one thing when a government borrows money to pay for a capital project that will last long after they are out of office. The net present value of an accruing pension is an operating cost and should be paid for as the obligation is incurred.
This is really an accounting problem. In California, at least, changes to the pension system weren't reflected in the current budget as future obligations.
So for many years city and state controllers dealt with union demands by "off the books borrowing" in the form of more lavish pensions. City and state pensions really are unnecessarily lavish, and the reason is voters never realized what obligations they were being asked to shoulder.
It's contract law. No admirable necessary.
Pensions etc are negotiated as part of the compensation package. Those former employees earned that money. It's not an entitlement, or charity.
Legitimate complaints would be gaming the pension system and chronic underfunding (kicking the can down the road).
As I understand it, public employee unions have not been big fans of defined-contribution, preferring the more generous promises. That is a risk that both the union and the government take together.
Unless the money is in an account with your name on it, what you have is a political promise, not a contractual obligation or an asset.
There is nothing contradictory about feeling overtaxed and also feeling that insufficient tax revenue is being spent on education.
Maybe it's just a lack of self awareness?
People think that way about all infrastructure, actually. "They want to raise water rates? What for?! We already pay $36/month!" Nobody thinks about the cost of digging up streets, replacing worn pipes, upgrading treatment plants, etc.
Their taxes will never be low enough because the service they receive will never meet their completely unrealistic standards.
CA colleges are, for a number of reasons (prop 13, etc), in perpetual budget crises. A mother with a daughter in a UC was interviewed on tv whining about the impact of budget cuts on her daughter's education. After about a minute of this moron whinging, the reporter asked if she would be willing to pay a couple hundred dollars per year more in tax if it were dedicated to the UC system. Given my description of her, you know the answer: Of course not! We're overtaxed!
Most people are too stupid to understand that if we want nice things, we have to collectively pay for them. Though to be fair, there's plenty of politicians (see Republicans in Kansas, Louisiana, etc) telling people what they want to hear: tax cuts pay for themselves...