Is anyone offering odds on a federal bailout of California?

While the results aren’t all in, it appears as if California residents have decided that we don’t want to pay for all of our government services. And yes, Massachusetts, we are jealous that you pay less in taxes and get more in services without going bankrupt—but if we were any good at value shopping, our housing market wouldn’t have exploded all over the place, would it?

Of course, there are practical (not to mention political) limits to how much government spending can be cut in such a short time. The remaining two options are much more likely: a default, or a bailout. California can’t actually default legally, but I imagine that the state government can change the law on the matter. A bankruptcy could be quite interesting. Everyone else would hate us (admit it, you do already), especially when their own muni bond auctions started failing (consider it our gift to New York). A bailout will add more stress to the US budget. That also has interesting problems.

Expect to see a lot of California headlines in the business section of your preferred news site in the very near future.

UPDATE: all precincts reporting now.