Posted on 11/23/2012 6:28:55 AM PST by VitacoreVision
The U-Haul Index, popularized by economist Mark Perry, shows how much extra people in California are willing to pay to get out of town and head for Texas.
Latest U-Haul Index Shows Californians Leaving for Texas
The New American
23 November 2012
One of the best indicators of a state’s economic health, according to John Merline, writing in Investor’s Business Daily, is the “U-Haul Index” (first publicized by economist Mark Perry) to see what people are paying to move into, or out of, the state. Renting a 20-foot truck one way from San Francisco to San Antonio, Texas, for example, costs $1,693. Going in the other direction, however, costs only $983 for the same truck.
As Perry explains:
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The American people and businesses are voting with their feet and their one-way truck rentals to escape California and its forced unionism, high taxes, and high unemployment rate for a better life in low-tax, business-friendly, right-to-work states like Texas.
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They have lots of reasons to leave. According to the Tax Foundation, “Tax Freedom Day” arrives earlier in Texas than it does in California, due to its zero individual and corporate income tax and a lower sales tax. Put together, Texas’ state and local tax burden is less than eight percent of income, well below the national average of nearly 10 percent, while California’s is almost 12 percent.
This enormous disparity puts California the 48th out of the 50 states in the foundation’s overall business tax climate index, while Texas ranks ninth.
It isn't all about taxes, however. Its regulatory environment and yawning fiscal deficits are chasing companies away to more favorable locales. Part is the state’s determined efforts to increase still further its tax burden on high income earners — now an astounding 13 percent — along with its implementation of policies favored by the Obama administration in Washington. As Joel Kotkin of NewGeography.com put it,
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California will serve as the prime testing ground for President Obama’s form of post-economic liberalism. Every dream program that the Administration embraces — cap and trade, massive taxes on the rich, high-speed rail — is either in place or on the drawing boards.
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Despite the state’s efforts to redistribute the wealth from those who earned it to those who didn't, “the ranks of the poor have swollen to the point that the state, with 12% of the nation’s population, accounts for one-third of its welfare cases,” notes Kotkin.
In their study “The Great California Exodus,” Manhattan Institute’s authors Tom Gray and Robert Scardamalia looked not only at how many are leaving, but where they’re going and why. Since 1990 California has lost nearly 3½ million residents, most of them moving to southwestern states such as Texas, Nevada, and Arizona.
They blame this out-migration on California’s “chronic economic adversity” as well as its population density: Los Angeles and Orange County have nearly 7,000 people per square mile, more than either New York City or Chicago. A third factor is what they call the state’s “constant fiscal instability” and the likelihood that its continued spending beyond its means will result in even higher taxes in the future.
Put altogether, then, the authors conclude
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that many cost drivers — taxes, regulations, the high price of housing and commercial real estate, costly electricity, union power, and high labor costs — are prompting businesses to locate outside California, thus helping to drive the exodus.
The U-Haul Index has been confirmed in each of the last eight years by Chief Executive magazine in its annual survey of CEOs: "Texas easily clinched the No. 1 rank, the eighth successive time it has done so. California earns the dubious honor of being ranked dead last for the eighth consecutive year."
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The magazine notes the obvious:
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California’s enduring place of perpetual decline continues in this year’s ranking. Once the most attractive business environment, the Golden State appears to slip deeper into the ninth circle of business hell. The economy, which used to outperform the rest of the country, now substantially under performs.
And its status as the most ruinously contentious place to operate remains undisturbed in eight years. Its unemployment rate, at 10.9 percent, is higher than every other state except Nevada and Rhode Island. With 12 percent of America’s population, California has one-third of the nation’s welfare recipients.
Each year, the evidence that businesses are leaving California or avoid locating there because of the high cost of doing business due to excessive state taxes and stringent regulations, grows.
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The U-Haul index is right: More and more people think it’s worth it to pay extra to get out of California.
Great! Do you feel at home there, yet, with your new surroundings? I would imagine it would take some time to get familiar with it when moving out of a state that is, basically, your roots into the unfamiliar no matter how good it is.
And since all that's left are illegals coming to Texas, I suggest y'all learn Spanish!
AMEN STAY IN CALI U RINO LIBTARDS
I’m so sick of all these libs coming to the once Great State of Texas and bringing their wacked out beliefs with them. They’ve ruined Texas.
I’ve been trashed on FR for saying it, but Texas will vote blue POTUS long before any “secession” happens.
I heard on the news this morning that Arizona has an initiative to provide incentives to the first 100 CEOs who move their companies from Cal to AR.
I hope the trend continues, since here in CA, outside a few of us, there are nothing left but libs and illegals.
Enjoy!
Some come here to build hot rods and make machete movies.
They also enjoy our celebration of the 2nd amendment.
Well, if it makes you feel any better, my extended (and uber lib) family has no plans to move from California to Texas.
As the sole conservative in my family, I finally couldn't take it another day, and moved my wife and kids to Texas seven years ago. I think lots of my liberal kin were glad to see me go.
The exodus we're seeing now, is mostly conservatives getting out of these liberal hellholes.
They have ruined many states...Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, New Hampshire...even Vermont was conservative many years ago; until ruined by deadheads and New Yorkers.
I just hope Floridians don’t do what I did 25 years ago, when I escaped from there to Texas.
Many of those M*ssh*les were conservatives; that is why NH counties along the Mass border are 'red'...it is the suburban New Yorkers that are ruining this state.
LOL... that’s FUNNY
Made me chuckle...
re: “The problem is these idiots bring their liberal politics with them and mess up the red states.”
You are EXACTLY correct. This has happened in Nevada. Nevada used to be a consistently conservative state in its voting in national elections.
However, from the 1980’s through 1998, the lost cost of housing vs. the through the roof cost of housing/living in California drove many Californians to move to nearby Nevada.
This constant influx of Californians into Nevada soon showed itself in state and national elections. Clark county was always a Democrat district, but all the other counties, including Washoe, usually went Republican. Now that is all gone, except for the rural counties.
Clark county, though it has always been a dem stronghold, is now near total Democrat controlled, and Washoe county voted Democrat in 2008 and 2012. Reid used to have to act conservative back in the 70’s and 80’s, even early 90’s - but, no more.
If Texas continues to get more and more Californians, it WILL begin to see this affecting local and national election results.
Well, my wife is from Florida, and she's no liberal. I suspect there are more conservatives fleeing the blue states than libs.
Personally, I think a lot of the movement we're seeing is based on left/right politics. Many populations around the world have physically separated in advance of worsening political climates. I've even run into a few lefties in the DFW area who told me they were leaving Texas because it was too red for their taste.
Sure, a lot of this movement is driven by economics, but I think people are also gravitating to places where others of like mind reside. There's no doubt that our culture is now divided more deeply than at any time since the Civil War. For myself, I feel more alien in a solidly liberal area, than I have in some foreign countries.
Jumping on the 'all Californians are liberals' bandwagon, eh? I know it's a time honored pastime here, but understand that the right has been driven out of California. They all went somewhere. Lots have gone to Texas, but you folks out in Indiana have probably gotten some too.
In favor of leaving California, the fact is my vote is totally worthless. Furthermore the not-so-subtle vilification and ostracism of non-conformists is on the increase. I really like the idea of legally carrying a firearm, no income tax, and hanging out someplace where the people are just naturally friendly like me. The hill country and west Texas will always feel like home to me.
On the other hand, I like going to the beach (im not talking about the gulf coast either), being an insurgent, undermining authority, and blowing people's minds with my just plain natural Texas accent. Plus there's the lack of actual weather in California.
However my girls are all from California, and they all want to move to Arizona. This may be the deciding factor.
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