With July 4th Near, Is California Still the Land of the Free?

RCM ^ | 07/02/2015 | Carson Bruno

[SeekAndFind]

The Fourth of July holiday brings Americans together to celebrate their liberation from Great Britain over hot dogs, hamburgers, and fireworks, but it also serves to remind us about freedom; thus, it would only be fitting to take a look at how free the nation's largest state is. Unfortunately, for Californians, the answer isn't as celebratory as the picnics many will be having on Friday and Saturday.

Using the Freedom in the 50 States index compiled by George Mason University's Mercatus Center, it easily becomes apparent that across the three categories of freedom - fiscal, regulatory, and personal -California is at or near the bottom of the pack in the U.S. Moreover, California is trending in the wrong direction.

* Fiscal Freedom: To determine fiscal freedom, Mercatus examines the level of government debt, spending, and employment, the degree to which the state is fiscally decentralized, and the state's tax burden. In the most recent rankings, California ranked 44th in the nation on fiscal freedom, representing a 6 spot drop since 2001. Driving California's poor fiscal freedom performance is the state's tax burden, where the Golden State ranks 45th. This shouldn't be surprising. Of the four main taxes - income, corporate, sales, and property - California's personal income taxes, corporate taxes, and sales taxes are among the highest in the country. Interestingly, California performs fairly well in the other fiscal freedom sub-categories, suggesting that California could significantly improve its fiscal freedom if it seriously addressed tax reform.

* Regulatory Freedom: Regulatory freedom examines the state's liability system, labor markets, and a host of regulatory regimes. On this metric, California performs the worst in the nation and one spot worse than in 2001.

[SoCal Pubbie]

I won’t stand in your way! It does get old though, doesn’t it? I’ve responded to the harping as you did many times.

[Sivad]

Well, the way I see it is SOMETIMES there is a
tad bit of jealousy in the mix. Our politics
absolutely sucks here in the Golden State but
the climate and the geographic options can’t
be found anywhere else. If I lived by politics
alone I would have left years ago.

We have gotten a lot of favorable publicity over
the past decades and I suspect others have gotten
tired of hearing it so when the opportunity to
rip the state comes along there are many ready to jump
at the chance. Funny thing is that most of those who
have done the bragging are newcomers, not the multi
generational Californians.

The bio of the poster I responded to says he/she
is from.....New York. Can you imagine a poster with
an NY zip code capping on CA? WTF? Many of Cali’s
problems started with NY and Northeast transplants.
(Barbara Boxer=NY ; Nancy Pelosi=Baltimore). Give me
a break!

[bert]

it was one day last week...... it will be a national holiday.....Queer Liberation Day