Posted on 01/22/2009 8:20:29 PM PST by SeekAndFind
California has apparently turned itself into Pennsylvania.
It's still our biggest, wealthiest state with 38 million people -- one in eight Americans.
It still has the sunshine, the beaches and the magnificent natural beauty that for 150 years have attracted and captured millions of migrants from New York and Pittsburgh to Des Moines and Mexico City.
So why, for the fourth straight year, has the number of people moving from California to states like Florida and Arizona exceeded the number moving into California from other states? And why was the annual net-exodus rate even higher in the 1990s?
Immigrants, legal and illegal, and a birth boom among mostly Latinos have kept California's total population growing every year. But last year its net loss of 164,000 in state-to-state migration exceeded every other state's. No. 2 was New York, which lost about 160,000.
A lot of Californians are moving back East today (if they can unload their devalued houses) for the same reason they and their ancestors moved out West in the first place -- to escape oppressive taxes, dead-end schools, traffic congestion and a breakdown of basic government services.
Sixty years ago, California was not just an empty natural paradise. It was a role model of good governance and opportunity.
Compared to the rest of the country, especially to over-governed, over-politicized, economically declining states like Pennsylvania, post-World War II California was a booming, upbeat utopia with lots of good jobs, cheap housing, low taxes and relatively few economic, cultural or moral regulations.
Back then, as urbanologist and longtime Southern California resident Joel Kotkin recently pointed out in a long article titled "Sundown for California," the state government was a positive force in the economic and social life of California that "laid the foundation for its remarkable ascendancy."
Sacramento operated in a pragmatic, nonpartisan, businesslike but progressive way, Kotkin says. While California boomed, the state government concentrated on keeping the public infrastructure (freeways, universities and water projects) in synch with the growing population and making sure it didn't do anything stupid to thwart business growth.
California is far different today. It's obviously a victim of global economic forces beyond its control, not to mention Washington-made fiscal and monetary malfeasance.
But Kotkin blames much of his state's fall from gold to rust on its own political culture. Over the last 30 years, he says, it has grown masochistically hostile to business and is now a rat's nest of partisan, liberal special-interest-group politics that any observer of Harrisburg or Albany could recognize.
Today California is helplessly trying to deal with a budget deficit of $42 billion-plus, a bloated and overpaid government work force, a poorly maintained infrastructure, collapsing housing prices, an unemployment rate of nearly 9 percent, a flood of illegal aliens and some of the highest mortgage foreclosure rates in the country.
Once the Golden State was famous for things like inventing new technologies, incubating our pop culture and being an irresistible mecca for young and restless dreamers. Now it's famous for insane politics, pioneering silly/costly environmental regulations and crippling taxes.
In 60 years, California's political "leaders" have done so much damage to their sunny paradise that they've made rusty old states like Pennsylvania look good again.
Maybe they are leaving because God is calling them out of there before the big quake, epicenter under San Francisco.
Answer = It’s the cost of living.
bttt
California...coming to a state near you.
Good . . . makes it nicer for those who choose to stay
We need to get control of our border with California.
The world’s seventh largest economy and they can’t balance the budget. Note tagline.
I used to love California. When I was a kid (early 60’s)we vacationed every summer either in San Diego or Santa Barbera. Now, it is truly the “land of the fruits and nuts”. Pretty soon, the only people that will be in CA will be illegals, gang-bangers, homos, and Hollywierd types.
Not so much anymore since so many manufacturing jobs have moved overseas. The cost of living in any particular area of CA is relative to the wages being paid in that area, and there’s just not enough livable wage jobs anymore.
The unions also have a stranglehold on things here, and big bucks to do it with. John and Ken just were talking about how the Gov wants state employees to take 2 days w/o pay a month to help balance the budget. It’s a great idea. The State Controller, Chang (or a name similar to that) agreed. But then the unions got to him. He changed his mind, said it was NOT possible. The unions are threatening to sue him and the Gov. J&K suggested that if he didn’t bend over, they would have refused to fund his election like they did last time.
Big Time union stranglehold here. Libs up in Sacramento (State Government) also have a stranglehold after gerrymandering districts to fit their needs. They want to create a Liberal Utopia and will not agree to cut ONE THING from the overinflated budget.
They can all go home, imho. We’d be much better off.
You may be right. I know a Christian family that moved here from SF. They said it had become a cesspool. They were sad because that was their home and there were still a lot of good Christian people there, but they didn’t feel like they wanted to raise their children in that atmosphere. I don’t know if you are right, but I do know Our Father looks after his children. God Bless you and Yours - JM
Less even than sixty years ago California had the fifth largest economy in the World. Many Nations couldn’t touch the Golden State.
It made sense for the Left to screw it all up, and they did.
PS — and then of course we are giving every illegal alien a free college education, just about. And any number of other benefits that we ‘regular folks’ pay for but do not get ourselves.
If you had several million illegals in your state using your social services into the billions of dollars a year,
your wouldn’t balance a budget either.
As someone with roots in PA I resent the comparison. Here in PA we still have our guns.
San Diego is adding on population.
Besides the huge military population,
Top in bio sciences, telecommunication, etc.
Huge amount of high tech
Number one in defense contractors.
Everything from ship building to the Predator and Global Hawk and everything inbetween.
Over 12 million dollars from the tourist industry.
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