California Bleedin' (Number 1 in net population loss)

Townhall ^ | Jan 22, 2009 | Bill Steigerwald

[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.

[SoldierDad]

I’m fearful that the mold was broken after President Reagan was born, and we won’t see his kind again. I pray that we can find another leader with the same qualities Reagan possessed - B. Hussein Obama is not that man. For whatever reason, DimocRATS cannot see that the Government is THE problem and not THE solution with respect to the economy (and health care). Reagan understood that - just as JFK understood that. I’m afraid that the dimocRAT party is not the same party as existed during the time of JFK. I have grave fears for our Nation and it’s survival.

[piasa]

The Democrat party is not looking for solutions- they are looking for power. Thus government is most certainly the solution they seek. It's just that in order to acquire government power, it is important that they never fix anything, so their constituency will remain dependent on them for elusive solutions that are always just one or two more elections away from realization.

This is why, when they are presented with ideas that are proven to work, they immediately discard them. If they ever solved the problems that plague their constituency, their voters would no longer need them.

[SoldierDad]

Job security.

[Pelham]

“and SF and LA could become Gaysia.”

We prefer to call it “Perversia”.

[TheEaglehasLanded]

Get the Hell out of California, while their is still time. Take over Nevada and Arizona and vote Dingy Harry and McCain out of office next year.

[Jubal Madison]

Yes - and a lot of them have never worked in the private sector or ran a business. I have to operate within a budget, decide how much of the profit I need to reinvest in the business, how much I need to pay to keep my employees, etc. all the while trying to turn out a better product at a better price than the competition and still make a profit. They just raise taxes. I am a college dropout. I understand business. I have a friend with a Phd , all he has ever done is taught school at various levels. A brilliant man, he is currently a professor of art at a local university. But he doesn’t have a clue the way the business world works. School of hard knocks is a wonderful learning tool. Don’t misunderstand me, I am all for education. But my point is we have elected people who, like my friend, have prestigious titles and fancy degrees. They think they can save the planet, and on paper it looks good. Then when it doesn’t work, they just get more money and try it again. If I make a bad business decision, I might go out of business. If I make the same foolish mistake again, I will be out of business. We need more people who are in the real world. We need people who “get it”. BO’s only real job has been a community organizer, and perhaps that is noble work. But does anyone really expect him to “get it”? On business, now that our country is in a financial crisis? I hold no such hope. I believe he is only going to make things much worse.

[Jubal Madison]

As do I. I look at Obama,Pelosi and Reid and realize their vision for the nation is the complete opposite of mine. Our values are polar opposites. FRiend, for the first time in my 47 years, I have fear for what this nation is becoming. And more frightening to me than that is that a large part of our country doesn’t appear to give a damn.