Californians are voting with their toes and transferring

ANALYSIS / OPINION:

Forget what most pundits have to say about last week’s dismissal that did not remove California Governor Gavin Newsom. Some Democrats think because Newsom was running on an anti-Trump platform that will bring the party success or less harm in the next two elections.

You are wrong. The real story is the slow but accelerating exodus from California to states with lower or no state taxes. That mass exit likely reduced the number of people who might have voted to oust Newsom. Add to this the rising cost of almost everything, including gasoline. At nearly $ 6 a gallon at some gas stations in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, California has the highest average price for gasoline in the nation.

There are other forces at work too.

James Freeman wrote in the Wall Street Journal last week: “California has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, and the state has the largest unprotected homeless in the country. Those who believe Sacramento couldn’t be more reluctant to create job creation should consider that the Tax Foundation has ranked the Golden State as home to the second worst tax climate in the country … Newsom (s) victory gives California a chance to conquer New Jersey’s crown . “

A report from the Hoover Institution / Stanford University found that people are leaving the state even faster than in previous years. Most critically, California lost 74 corporate headquarters in just the first six months of this year. This contrasts with 62 companies that had moved throughout 2020.

Where you go? Especially in Texas, where there is no state tax, gas prices are much lower and you can buy a home (depending on where you live) at prices well below many areas in California.

If you believe this is due to the pandemic, the researchers used data from 2018 to show the three-year exodus. The San Francisco Bay Area accounted for five of the ten states with the highest number of company departures. A total of 47 companies left.

According to Hoover, “765 commercial establishments left California in the boom years of 2018 and 2019. This exodus does not count Charles Schwab’s announcement that he will be leaving San Francisco this year. It also does not include the estimated 13,000 companies that left the country between 2009 and 2016. “

The economic and other benefits to Texas and the company’s employees who have moved are enormous. According to Hoover, 114 of the 265 known California companies have relocated their headquarters in the past three years.

The foreseeable reasons are high taxes, high cost of living, energy prices and regulations. California has become a one-party state as too many people continue to rely on the government to do things the government never expected. Appeals for independence are over, replaced by excessive dependence on the government as a nanny state.

It is hoped that those who leave California will not be liberals taking their politics and the endorsement of failed programs to Texas and other states with more favorable business conditions.

Unfortunately, no one can escape the long arm of Washington, which under the Biden administration apparently wants to raise taxes to a new level and let us be forgotten. California is a great example of where the harm is leading to businesses and individuals.

It is amazing that in just 50 years California has shifted from Ronald Reagan’s financially conservative policies to Gavin Newsom’s democratic catastrophe.

• Readers can email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Cal Thomas’ latest book, America’s Expiration Date: The Fall of Empires and Superpowers and the Future of the United States (HarperCollins / Zondervan).

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