Posted on 02/21/2008 4:07:43 AM PST by Man50D
WASHINGTON California, which once lured Americans from near and far, is now driving out millions of the most productive residents including high percentages of the most affluent.
"When California faced a Mount Everest-sized $14 billion deficit in 2003, one of the major causes for the red ink was the stampede of millionaire households from the state," says a report called "Rich States, Poor States" by economists Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore. "Out of the 25,000 or so seven-figure-income families, more than 5,000 left in the early 2000s, and the loss of their tax payments accounted for about half the budget hole."
And it's not just the rich leaving.
Based on data from moving companies, California had the second-highest domestic population out-flow of any state in 2005, according to the report, "despite the beautiful weather, beaches, and mountains."
The bad news for California is that it faces $14 billion deficit this year, despite boasting one of the highest tax burdens in the nation.
The report, published by the American Legislative Exchange Council shows jobs are not just leaving the country they are moving from state to state, with the population following.
"States are in direct competition with each other for human capital and business investment. State governments that think they can attract jobs and people, and grow their economies, by taxing their citizens at a higher rate than their neighbors are sadly mistaken," said Democratic Arkansas state Sen. Steve Faris, ALEC's 2008 national chairman. "Legislators should take a close look at where their state ranks in this book and use it as a tool to help them improve."
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
I've never heard anyone say that it is too expensive to do business in Texas, Florida, Arizona, Missouri, and a long list of other places.
Small businesses are foundering and large ones are either shopping for deals in other counties in CA or being romanced by other states.
Hot tip for small enterprinure today is selling [mandatory] auto insurance to any and all starting at $17 a month. Another is charging to handle vehicle registration in one's native language. I don't see either of those, or lawn maintenance, as doing much for the tax base.
Right now it's even more depressing to watch local real estate dropping like a rock while all the places you want to go to are holding steady.
I'm only here today because I can't lever Ms Norton out of the smog and shopping. [don't remind me, wimping out in my old age]
Amazing ain't it?
It’s very strange to me. I always assumed it was conservatives fleeing CA. Maybe more liberals are, so they can find “quaint” places to raise their kids. I can’t imagine any self-respecting conservative would move out of CA to another state and then start encouraging regulation.
Maybe if we conservatives stick around in CA, it will turn conservative again. Like the liberal flight from LA causing it to be more conservative now. One can dream.
You may be right about that. My apologies on behalf of my obnoxious bretheren. I just assumed that, having escaped from the New Jersey Nightmare, they would emerge chastened and humble.
Bad assumption, eh?
It that's the case, he must have been shot and killed Georgia.
Atlanta and Los Angeles Comparative Crime Ratios per 100,000 People
Kalifornia - a good place to be FROM.
Richmond Virgina and Los Angeles California Comparative Crime Ratios per 100,000 People
OH NO!!!!! Now, all those Blue votes are infiltrating Red States.
Nice fantasy, but highly implausible.
Thirty five years ago you could take your rifle or shotgun into the Santa Cruz mtns a few miles from town and plink at varmints & abandoned cars. Our front door was left open on summer nights, and I still remember the big initiative to get people to lock their cars ("don't help a good boy go bad").
How did this happen here? To attribute this nations drift to the left on people in one particular region is a rather ignorant oversimplification, IMO. Maybe there's something else going on.
Been tried once, found not to work without heavy supplements from outside -- see East Berlin/East Germany. Look for it to be repeated soon since the Left is not known for learning from history.
So now it’s becoming Teximexifornia?
If our national leaders could learn from observation they would see a population fleeing from, high taxes, illegal immigrants, terrible schools, social indoctrination and sexual license.
But they will not learn and this story will be repeated elsewhere.
Oklahoma City and Los Angeles Comparative Crime Ratios per 100,000 People
Well, I don’t intend to move again. And if some idjit tries to tell me that I can’t raise my kids the way I see fit or do whatever I want with my own property, there is going to be a fight.
Kansas City and Los Angeles Comparative Crime Ratios per 100,000 People
Semper Fi
An Old Man
Crime is just one statistic. Personal freedoms are a lot less than they are in Virginia.
I think North Dakota is a beautiful state. (But I won’t let that slip out amongst my liberal friends and relatives.)
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