Posted on 12/12/2012 9:37:46 PM PST by blam
55 Reasons Why California Is The Worst State In America
By Michael Snyder
December 12th, 2012
Why in the world would anyone want to live in the state of California at this point? The entire state is rapidly becoming a bright, shining example of everything that is wrong with America. It is so sad to watch our most populated state implode right in front of our eyes. Like millions of Americans, I was quite enamored with the state of California when I was younger. The warm weather, the beaches, the great natural beauty of the state and the mystique of Hollywood all really appealed to me. At one point I even thought that I wanted to move there. But today, hordes of Californians are racing to get out of the state because it has become a total nightmare.
It is the worst state in the country in which to do business, taxes were just raised even higher, unemployment is more than 20 percent higher than the national average and the state government is drowning in debt. Meanwhile, poverty, gang activity and crime just seem to get worse with each passing year. On top of everything else, the insane politicians in Sacramento just keep on passing more laws that make the problems that the state is facing even worse. Unfortunately, what is happening in California may be a preview of what is coming to the entire nation. The old adage, "as California goes, so goes the nation", has been proven to be true way too many times.
In dozens of different ways, the state of California is showing the rest of us what not to do. Will we learn from their mistakes, or will we follow them into oblivion? Please share the list below with as many people as you can. In addition to a large amount of new research, this list also pulled heavily from one of my previous articles and from outstanding research done by Richard Rider. The following are 55 reasons why California is the worst state in America...
1. One survey of business executives has ranked California as the worst state in America to do business for 8 years in a row.
2. In 2011, the state of California ranked 50th out of all 50 states in new business creation.
3. According to one recent study, California is the worst-governed state in the entire country.
4. Thanks to Proposition 30, California now boasts the highest state income tax rate in the nation.
5. Even though California just raised taxes dramatically on the wealthy, state revenues are falling like a rock. State revenue for November 2012 was 10.8 percent below projections.
6. California has the highest sales tax rate in the United States.
7. California has the 8th highest corporate income tax rate in the country.
8. California has the highest "minimum corporate tax" in the country. Each corporation must pay at least $800 to the state even if a corporation does not make a single dollar of profit.
9. California is tied with New York for the highest gasoline tax rate in the country.
10. California is the only state in America that taxes carbon emissions.
11. The state of California issues some of the most expensive traffic tickets in the nation. This is another form of taxation.
12. As of October, only Nevada and Rhode Island had higher unemployment rates than California.
13. The unemployment rate in California is more than 20 percent higher than the overall unemployment rate for the rest of the nation.
14. The state of California requires licenses for 177 different occupations (the most in the nation). The national average is only 92.
15. California teachers are the highest paid in the nation, but California students rank 48th in math and 49th in reading.
16. California accounts for 12 percent of the U.S. population, but a whopping 33 percent of Americans that receive TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) live there.
17. Only the state of Illinois has a lower bond rating than the state of California does.
18. Including unfunded pension liabilities, the state of California has more than twice as much debt as any other state does.
19. Average pay for California state workers has risen by more than 100 percent since 2005. That is good news for those state employees, but it is bad news for the taxpayers that have to pay their salaries.
20. More than 5,000 California state troopers made more than $100,000 last year.
21. One highway patrol officer ended up bringing home almost $484,000 in 2011.
22. One state psychiatrist in California was paid $822,000 in 2011.
23. Since 2007, the number of children living in poverty in the state of California has increased by 30 percent.
24. Sadly, an astounding 60 percent of all students attending California public schools now qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches.
25. The American Tort Reform Association has ranked the state of California as the worst "judicial hellhole" in America.
26. Businesses all over the state of California are being absolutely suffocated to death by ridiculous regulations.
27. According to the Milken Institute, operating costs for California businesses are 23 percent higher than the national average.
28. According to CNN, the state of California had the worst "small business failure rate" in America in 2010. It was 69 percent higher than the national average.
29. The number of people unemployed in the state of California is roughly equivalent to the populations of Nevada, New Hampshire and Vermont combined.
30. Residential customers in California pay about 29 percent more for electricity than the national average.
31. So many poor people and illegal aliens have taken advantage of the "free" healthcare at emergency rooms that many of them have been forced to shut down in California. As a result, the state of California now ranks dead last out of all 50 states in the number of emergency rooms per million people.
32. Political correctness is totally out of control in California.
33. One California town is actually considering making it illegal to smoke in your own backyard.
34. The traffic around the big cities is horrific.
35. Los Angeles
36. San Francisco
37. Oakland
38. Stockton
39. Sacramento
40. The rampant gang activity in the state gets even worse with each passing year.
41. Crime continues to rise all over the state.
42. Just recently, the city attorney of San Bernardino, California told citizens to "lock their doors and load their guns" because there is not enough money to pay for adequate police protection any longer.
43. The murder rate in San Bernardino is up 50 percent this year.
44. In Oakland, burglaries are up 43 percent so far this year.
45. Today, Oakland is considered the 5th most violent city in the United States.
46. There have been more than 250 gold chain robberies in Stockton, California just since the month of April.
47. In Stockton, the police budget cuts got so bad that the police union put up a billboard at one point with the following message: "Welcome to the 2nd most dangerous city in California. Stop laying off cops."
48. Jerry Brown.
49. The absolutely insane California state legislature.
50. Wildfires.
51. Mudslides.
52. The state of California lies directly along the infamous "Ring of Fire". Approximately 90 percent of all the earthquakes in the entire world happen along the Ring of Fire and the "Big One" could hit the state at any moment.
53. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 100,000 more people moved out of the state of California in 2011 than moved into it.
54. During 2011, more than 58,000 people moved from California to the state of Texas.
55. Overall, the state of California has experienced a net loss of about four million residents to other states over the past 20 years.
“I thought I’d died and gone to Hell. But I was only in El Segundo.”
Little Bill
I lived in the Castaic area for a couple of years. I remember driving into the mountains during the “winter” and seeing many pickups loaded with or being loaded with snow to take to the valley to make snowmen - enjoying the winter without having to live through it! Too bad the liberals are in charge.
What makes you think the people that ruined California are from California?
We need to vote them out.....just need more conservatives.
yitbos
Government employees are by definition tax takers.
Yep.
Government poduces nothing. That is why all government employees are part of the takers
California Dads failed to assert their balls, which turned the culture effeminate.
Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) thought she’d turn Michigan into a California-like state and look where she ended up- At UC Berkely and MSNBC.
My guess is one of those surveys counts pot farming and one doesn't.
I prefer Calhoun's name for them: tax eaters.
Ducks let the weather decide where they live; human beings turn up the heat or put on a jacket.
I might get banned but I believe Fr should move to AZ, sure it will cost money, all Jim has to do is just ask.
California School District Owes $1 Billion On $100 Million Loan
npr ^ | Dec 7, 2012 | Richard Gonzales / FR Posted by Biser
More than 200 school districts across California are taking a second look at the high price of the debt they've taken on using risky financial arrangements. Collectively, the districts have borrowed billions in loans that defer payments for years — leaving many districts owing far more than they borrowed. (Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
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In 2010, officials at the West Contra Costa School District, just east of San Francisco, were in a bind. The district needed $2.5 million to help secure a federally subsidized $25 million loan to build a badly needed elementary school. Charles Ramsey, president of the school board, says he needed that $2.5 million upfront, but the district didn't have it. Why would you leave $25 million on the table? You would never leave $25 million on the table.
- Charles Ramsey, school board president, West Contra Costa School District. “We'd be foolish not to take advantage of getting $25 million” when the district had to spend just $2.5 million to get it, Ramsey says. “The only way we could do it was with a [capital appreciation bond].”
Those bonds, known as CABs, are unlike typical bonds, where a school district is required to make immediate and regular payments. Instead, CABs allow districts to defer payments well into the future — by which time lots of interest has accrued.In the West Contra Costa Schools’ case, that $2.5 million bond will cost the district a whopping $34 million to repay.”
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The $822,000-per-Year Bureaucrat and the Death of California
Townhall.com | Daniel J. Mitchell / Posted by Kaslin
Outrageous examples of overpaid bureaucrats:The chief bureaucrat of a low-income California city getting almost $800,000 per year. Cops in Oakland getting average compensation of $188,000. California taxpayers being forced to pay a fired bureaucrat $550,000 for unused vacation time.
(ELSEWHERE A school superintendent in New York raking in more than $500 thousand annual compensation. A Philadelphia bureaucrat, after working only 2-1/2 years, gets a guaranteed annual pension of $50,000 per year. A New York school bureaucrat w/ a $225,000 salary and $300,000 pension simultaneously. A New Jersey Turnpike employee raking in an annual $320,000.)
THERE'S MORE California is in a race with Illinois to see which state can become the Greece of America. The Golden State has a new über-bureaucrat....jaw-dropping details from a Bloomberg report.....More at townhall.com
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A Labyrinth of Govt Fraud----stories like this mean astonishingly easy, massive govt fraud.
REFERENCE Govt officials find 2nd off-the-books bank account / LAT / February 17, 2011
Montebello, Cali govt officials said they discovered yet a.n.o.t.h.e.r secret off-the-books bank account that once contained nearly $1 million in city govt funds. Officials do not know why the secret account was created, why it was never recorded on the city's general ledger or what happened to the govt money that was transferred out. One signator on the secret account was former City Manager Richard Torres. City policy generally requires the treasurer to be a signator, not the city manager. The bank holding the secret account refused to disclose to the city who the other two signators are.
Revelations about a secret Union Bank account follow news of an off-the-books account at Banco Popular discovered earlier....That account contained about $240,000 govt monies; officials also discovered records that indicated tens of thousands of govt dollars had been transferred out. They do not know to whom or why.
City govt's official banker is Bank of the West. Officials have asked for bank statements and records and are hoping to reconstruct what happened. They have also queried every member of the govt finance department to ask if they know of any other off-the-books accounts. The Union Bank account came to light when an employee
spontaneously alerted the finance director. Officials found out about the Banco Popular account when the bank contacted city govt because the account had been dormant for a while.
The news about the secret accounts comes as Montebello struggles to close a deficit that could force officials to make deep service cuts and lay off employees. Criminal probes have also begun in San Bernardino agencies for possible govt fraud.
Kind of like “Pacific Heights” writ large. A charming place you can’t bear to part with, but you find yourself sharing it with a psycho monster.
In this case a few million psycho monsters.
Right flight is still just a trickle. And flight won’t fix the problem anyway.
Someday soon, this will be America.
Just curious. What is it about that state that makes you want to put with all the crap thrown at you by its government? No scenery or climate, in MYHO, are worth all the financial costs and restrictions on personal liberty.
Or is it an ingrained masochism that guides your life?
Arizona has 99% of the weather benefits of California with only a few of the problems on that long list. It’s a little warm in July, true, but San Diego is a fairly short drive if one needs a break. Besides, extreme heat does more to eliminate the homeless from city streets than all the government programs ever devised. :)
DOH! I thought it was a comparison to the other 55 states...
A relative of mine and his friends who live in So CA are talking get-the-hell-out and looking at TX...
Big mistake...unless there’s a lock down at the border, TX will be CA in a few years...a hot, humid CA.
I am currently living in the reddest state in the US. All my representatives are conservative. I’d go back to California’s breathtaking vistas in a heartbeat. There’s more to life than politics. As for energy costs—our electricity and gas bills have been as high as in California. And this is supposed to be an energy producing state!
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