Free Republic

Steven Spielberg, phone home! The legendary “E.T.” director and California resident has moved to Manhattan amid a billionaire exodus from the Golden State — as voters eye a controversial wealth tax. But the move, first reported by the LA Times, allegedly had nothing to do with the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act. “Steven’s move to the East Coast is both long-planned and driven purely by his and Kate Capshaw’s desire to be closer to their New York-based children and grandchildren,” spokeswoman Terry Press said. Press did not answer queries about Spielberg’s stance on the proposed tax, which would slap a one-time...

Who is moving to California or New York? Or Chicago. No one, pretty much. The only rival to Florida is Texas. Austin is an enormous tech hub, while both Dallas and Houston are economic powerhouses. Dallas has become a financial center and now has its own stock exchange. Florida and Texas are poised to be the great rivals of the 21st century, as New York and California were in the 20th. What do Florida and Texas have in common? No income tax, to begin with. That is obviously a huge factor. But it is more than that: both are competently...

You may vote red or blue, but would you rather live in a blue state or a red state? Regardless of what people do at the ballot box, newly released data from the Census Bureau overwhelmingly show people voting with their feet, leaving blue states for red states. And this is nothing new.From July 2024 to July 2025 (the latest numbers available), blue states like California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Massachusetts hemorrhaged their most valuable resource—people—at an alarming rate.These were the five worst states for net domestic migration, meaning more people left those states than moved in, for...

Key points from the coverage/transcript snippets: Harry Enten analyzes data showing significant out-migration from blue/Democratic-leaning states (e.g., California, New York, Illinois, etc.). He describes this as potentially leading to a "Blue State Depression" — meaning economic and political downturns in those states due to population loss. States gaining population (often red or purple ones like Florida, Texas, etc.) are positioned as winners. The framing suggests this mass exodus could spell serious trouble ("doom") for Democrats in future elections, tax bases, representation, etc.

The battle over a new tax on California’s billionaires is set to heat up in the coming months as citizens spar over whether the state should squeeze its ultra-rich to better serve its ordinary residents. The proposed billionaire tax that triggered the tempest is still far from being approved by voters or even making the ballot, but the idea has already sparked backlash from vocal tech moguls — some of whom have already shifted their bases outside the state. Under the Billionaire Tax Act, Californians worth more than $1 billion would pay a one-time 5% tax on their total wealth....

I just wrote about some of the billionaires fleeing California to avoid the proposed "one time" wealth tax which would take 5% of everything they own. But the LA Times points out it's not just the very wealthy who are fleeing the state. Once again, California topped a list put together by U-Haul showing the most out-migration.U-Haul’s survey of the more than 2.5 million one-way trips using its vehicles in the U.S. last year showed that the gap between the number of people leaving and the number arriving was higher in California than in any other state.While the Golden State...

Texas is on track to become America's most populous state as disgruntled liberals continue to flee California in droves. The deep red state is set to claim the top spot by 2045, according to a new data from Realtor.com, as its population soars from 31 million to a predicted 42 million. The Lone Star State is currently the second most populous state to California, which counts 39 million residents. The Golden State has been suffering population declines in recent years. Residents cite its high cost of living and poor quality of life as factors in driving them away, and from...

What happens when the swamp drains? All the critters hiding in it find someplace else to go. And fast, before predators begin picking them apart.That process may have already begun in the biggest swamp of them all. According to the Daily Mail, the housing shortage in the Washington DC area has turned almost overnight into a glut. Prices have fallen by double-digit percentages since Donald Trump got elected and Elon Musk started rooting out profligate spending, with thousands of listings appearing over the last thirty days.Is this true? I want to believe. The Daily Mail got the data from analysts...

Americans are constantly on the move, with many leaving their home states in search of better opportunities, lower living costs, or a change in scenery. Some states see more departures than others, raising the question of what’s driving people to pack up and leave.This visualization, via Visual Capitalist's Kayla Zhu, shows the top five states that American residents moved away from in 2023 and their migration outflows, with the top three states where people from those states moved to labeled.State-by-state migration flow data comes from the U.S. Census Bureau and is updated as of August 2024. Only residents aged one...

Over the years, Donald Trump has considered all sorts of melodramatic solutions to what he perceives is an immigration crisis in the USA: mass deportations, an alligator-filled moat, an electrified wall. It turns out all he had to do was win another presidential election and wait. Because if even half the number of liberal celebrities who’ve claimed they’ll flee to seek refuge abroad really do go, net migration should be balanced in no time. Call it The Donald Dash, The Trump Jump or the Maga Stagger, but report after report emerging from the other side of the Atlantic suggests the...

Ellen DeGeneres is making a quick exit from the United States — seemingly for good. The 66-year-old talk show host, comedian and actress has moved to rural England, according to a new report in The Wrap. DeGeneres is taking up roots in the UK with her wife Portia de Rossi, 51, and they reportedly have no plans to return to the US. To underscore the apparent permanence of the move, the couple plan to put their Montecito mansion on the market. A person close to the former Ellen DeGeneres Show host claimed that she and de Rossi were primarily skipping...

As skyrocketing costs and mass exoduses define the Golden State, Democrats face a crucial reckoning.In the final days of the presidential election, President-elect Donald Trump never missed a chance to tie his opponent to California. It was a critique that required no elaboration—though true to form, Trump didn't shy away from providing an overheated one. At his Madison Square Garden rally in October, he proclaimed that Vice President Kamala Harris was a "radical-left lunatic" who "destroyed California." Breathless rhetoric notwithstanding, it is a problem for national Democratic ambitions that California—the state most associated with the party's rule—is now synonymous with...

While $100 may seem like it holds the same value across the U.S., that’s far from the reality. The purchasing power of a dollar can vary significantly from state to state, influenced by factors such as the cost of food, utilities, taxes, housing, and transportation.This map, via Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti, illustrates the purchasing power of $100 by state, using data from GOBankingRates compiled as of February 19, 2024.MethodologyGOBankingRates compiled data from the 2022 Regional Price Parities reoporting by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Affairs. It then used factors such as median household income, sourced from the 2022 American Community...

...urban progressivism is afflicted by an inability to build. Cities in red states are building much more housing than those in blue states. In 2024, Austin, Raleigh, and Phoenix are expected to expand their apartment inventory more than five times faster than San Diego, Baltimore, or San Francisco. One hidden effect of expensive housing is that it raises the cost of local services and creates shortages of workers willing to accept low wages in labor-intensive industries, such as child care. As a result, large urban areas have more expensive child care, even relative to their higher levels of income. A...

One of the most damaging impacts of Illinois’ people loss to other states is the destruction of Illinois’ tax base. When people leave in a given year, they take their incomes (adjusted gross incomes, or AGI) with them, and that means the state’s tax base suffers. A smaller tax base, everything else equal, means less tax revenues for safety, education, road repair and every other core government service – or, as is typically the case in Illinois, more debts and more tax hikes.Unfortunately, Illinois’ out-migration problem is much bigger than just a one year loss: the state has lost people...

One southern city has become a boomer boomtown thanks to an influx of older Americans flocking to its age-restricted, bustling community. Georgetown, Texas is officially the fastest-growing city in the country in part due to its wealthy 55-and-older community called Sun City Texas. An analysis of Census Bureau data for cities with populations of at least 50,000 by The Wall Street Journal found Georgetown has now been the top city for population growth for three years in a row. Georgetown grew 11 percent in 2023, 14 percent in 2022 and 11 percent in 2021. The median age in the boomer-rich...

Will the last person to leave California please turn off the lights? Assuming they aren't in the middle of one of California's increasingly frequent brownouts, that is. Relocation firm moveBuddha looked at searches for 100,000 moves just this year, and five of the top ten were people looking to get out of the Golden State for almost anywhere else. "5 of the top 10 exit metros are in California, the firm reported on Monday. "Los Angeles has the highest interest in outbound moves, with 42% more outbound inquiries than runner-up San Francisco. Per capita, the prize goes to San Francisco."The...

Wealthy beach lovers are left devastated as they're forced to slash prices of their luxury seaside homes by millions due to climate change. Climate experts believe the rise in sea levels and unforgiving storms, intense rainfall and coastal flooding and erosion are the culprits putting homeowners in a precarious position - and the unpredictability of it all. The areas with some of the priciest real estate that have been hit the hardest include, Dana Point, California, to Long Island, New York, and Nantucket, Massachusetts, CNBC reported. In September, a beach front home on Nantucket that listed for $2.3 million, fell...

As Democrats make their case to voters around the country this fall, one challenge is that some of the bluest parts of the country — cities on the West Coast — are a mess. Centrist voters can reasonably ask: Why put liberals in charge nationally when the places where they have greatest control are plagued by homelessness, crime and dysfunction? I’ll try to answer that question in a moment, but liberals like me do need to face the painful fact that something has gone badly wrong where we’re in charge, from San Diego to Seattle. ...the truth is that too...

The U.S. Census Bureau reported Thursday that 300,000 people left California in 2022, more than left any other state, amid a general slow increase in the U.S. population as the country recovered from COVID-19. The estimates cover the period from July 2021 to July 2022. It was the third consecutive annual decline for California, the Sacramento Bee noted, though births outnumbered deaths.