California's dramatic, post-World War II evolution from semirural backwater into the nation's most populous state, with an economy of world-class proportions, has many causal roots, but one of the larger was the powerful flow of money from Washington.

The state established itself as the nation's top producer of military ordnance as air power became the dominant mode of warfare, and the economic fallout was immense. At one point in the 1980s, 20 percent of all Pentagon dollars were being spent in California, supporting dozens of military bases and, more important, hundreds of thousands of civilian defense industry jobs.

One effect of California's symbiotic relationship with the federal government was a distinct imbalance in the disbursement of federal dollars. We got far more dollars from Washington than we generated in federal taxes and incurred no small amount of resentment in other states, manifesting itself in what came to be known in the federal capital as the "Anywhere But California," or ABC, syndrome.

As long as the Cold War simmered and as long as California maintained strong White House connections (the state produced two presidents during the postwar era, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan), it continued to enjoy the flow of federal bucks. But Pentagon spending on strategic weapons systems plummeted with the end of the Cold War, and one effect was to plunge California into a very severe recession.

The Washington-based California Institute for Federal Policy Research has calculated that California's return for every dollar of federal taxes collected in the state has plunged from a high of nearly $1.10 in the mid-1980s (a $6.8 billion surplus) to about 77 cents today (a deficit of nearly $60 billion.) There's more to this dramatic turnaround than the decline in Pentagon spending, however. With their relatively high personal incomes, Californians have higher-than-average federal tax bills, while its relatively young population draws a subpar share of Social Security. And the old ABC syndrome also plays a role, with politicians from other states designing grant procedures that tend to disfavor California. The most dramatic drop in the state's relative share of federal dollars has occurred in the last half-decade, coinciding with control of both Congress and the White House by Republicans who see California as hostile territory.

Members of California's congressional delegation complain constantly about the state's declining share of federal largess, but with most of them being Democrats, their cries often fall on deaf political ears. The Bush White House, meanwhile, is concentrating on shoring up its standing in states that could swing this year's presidential election and has given every indication - public statements notwithstanding - that it will write off California.

That's where California's newly elected Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, enters the picture. Even before his election last fall, Schwarzenegger was pledging to become, in a takeoff of his best-known movie persona, a "Collectinator" who would cajole or force the feds to treat California more generously. And it was a significant theme of Schwarzenegger's visit to Washington last month for a national governors' conference.

"I expect to get a lot of it simply because, you know, I'm very persuasive and I'm like, you know, a tick that hangs on it and will not let go until I get what I want," Schwarzenegger told reporters after a meeting with Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Getting more federal reimbursement for illegal immigrants being held in the state's prisons is a high priority, along with bigger chunks of homeland security and medical funds.

Schwarzenegger's two immediate predecessors, Democrat Gray Davis and Republican Pete Wilson, also decried the state's declining share of federal dollars and also promised to bring home the bacon, but failed miserably. Will Schwarzenegger succeed where they failed? With another round of federal base closures looming, with several of California's 322 military installations at risk, and with the open disdain for California in the Bush administration, however, the more likely scenario is that the state's share will continue to drop.