They each have tax receipts that vary with the economy along with fixed expenditures. The recent downturn has made their expenditures far higher than their receipts. Neither California nor Greece have control of their money supply, so printing money is not a solution. Both live in a union where capable workers can easily leave, so raising taxes won't help much either. Therefore, they have to make cuts. This leads people on the receiving end of cuts in each area to periodically riot in protest of reality. Megan McArdle's comments on the California students can be equally applied to government workers in Greece.
...I'm not sure what they think is supposed to happen. There's no money. This is not some question of reallocating resources from bad uses to good--everything is being cut because their institutions are under serious financial duress.California is a little bit better off than Greece, at least they weren't caught lying about their finances.