First Vallejo, then Stockton, then Mammoth Lakes, and now San Bernardino and soon possibly Compton. As Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach told Bloomberg News, the bankruptcy dominoes are starting to fall. One California city after another—following a decade-long spree of ramping up public-employee pay and pension benefits, as well as redevelopment debt—are becoming insolvent. …

The latest talking point is that these cities couldn’t control what happened to them. The Riverside Press-Enterprise reported: “The city of San Bernardino’s financial woes are a directly correlation to a torrent of foreclosures in the Inland area of Southern California, the national foreclosure tracking firm RealtyTrac said Thursday. ‘Property taxes plunged in San Bernardino because of an avalanche of foreclosure activity during the recent housing bust,’ said RealtyTrac vice president Daren Blomquist.”

There’s no doubt San Bernardino and Stockton—Ground Zero for the housing crisis—suffered from the problem described above. But what did those cities do with the rapid increase in property tax revenues during the price run-up? We know—they squandered it on increased compensation for government employees, on redevelopment projects and other questionable spending deals. They squandered the money when it came flowing in, now depict themselves as victims of circumstance when the funds dried up.