Free Republic

More people are leaving the New York region than any other major metropolitan area in the country. More than 1 million people moved out of the New York area to other parts of the country since 2010, a rate of 4.4 percent — the highest negative net migration rate among the nation’s large population centers, US Census records show. The number of people leaving the region — which includes parts of New Jersey, Connecticut, the lower Hudson Valley and Long Island — in one year swelled from 187,034 in 2015 to 223,423 in 2016, while the number of international immigrants...

Carl Icahn, the legendary investor, has told employees that he is moving his company from New York to Miami and a report said his decision to move is based on the Big Apple’s higher taxes. Icahn, 83, whose net worth is about $20.4 billion, is set to move his home and business from the city due to the taxes, sources told Bloomberg. The report said that it is not uncommon for billionaires to settle in the state which is one of seven without a personal income tax. The report pointed to New York’s 8.82 percent rate. …

It's never a good sign for a city when starts to see its population contracting. But that seems to be New York Mayor Bill de Blasio's plan, trashing the few little islands of good public school education in the great city, in the name of socialized outcomes. He set up a commission of cronies and those cronies recommended what he wanted them to recommend - that New York's charter and competitive schools be shut down in the name of "equality." Now, every school is set to be equally bad. But the custodians will continue to draw $100,000 salaries. Kyle Smith at...

More people are leaving Orange and Los Angeles counties than are moving in, according to census data. A breakdown of last year’s census numbers shows Orange County had 20,104 more people leave than move in, marking the 10th worst net out-migration among big counties in the U.S. L.A. County had 98,608 people leave, marking the biggest net loss in the U.S. Gabriela Aragon, of Santa Ana, isn’t surprised to hear about exodus. “If I want a nice three bedroom home … you think you’re not gonna be able to afford it here so maybe elsewhere,” she said.

Thanks in large part to the Trump-GOP tax reform law passed in December 2017, residents of high-tax states like New York, New Jersey, and California are leaving in high numbers — and the exodus is only just beginning, say experts. “It took a few months for taxpayers to realize the dollar implications – until they actually filed their tax returns this year,” Alan Goldenberg, a principal at Friedman LLP, told Fox Business. “It quantified the impact of the loss of the SALT deduction when people saw it in front of their eyes on their tax return.”

It’s known here as The Exodus. People are leaving Illinois in droves. Republicans blame the state’s high taxes and its unfunded pension liability, which tops $130 billion. Democrats believe it’s the state’s lack of investment in education and infrastructure. One thing is certain: Illinois’ population has declined by 157,000 residents over the past five years, making it one of only two states — West Virginia is the other — to lose people over the past decade. Illinois’ predicament is a perfect storm of declining manufacturing, stagnant immigration, declining birth rates, young people leaving for college and never coming back, long-standing...

MSN News reprints a paywalled Los Angeles Times story on a startling development: California’s population growth has tumbled to the slowest rate in the state’s history.  The wonderful weather, scenery, and other attractions that have drawn people since 1849 no longer work. In asking themselves why this should be the case, writers Javier Panzar and Sarah Parvini manage to overlook the factor to is uppermost in my mind as I contemplate ending more than 30 years’ residence in the Golden State: the highest in the nation taxes, contrasted with the dismal state of the highways, schools, and other public...

You can't go a week without another report of businesses and people leaving California because of the high cost of housing. Today it's the Wall Street Journal's turn, in a story headlined, "California Has the Jobs but Not Enough Homes." The problem -- a self-inflicted problem if there ever was one -- is that the hot economy is creating jobs, but developers can't build enough affordable living space. The WSJ reports that "companies are expanding outside the state or moving outright as an affordable-housing crisis casts a shadow on the booming economy."More: For employers, “we’re at a crisis stage,”...

A new poll shows a third of New York residents plan to move because they can't afford to stay. Businesses that are closing cited "economic" reasons for their decision. They represent a wide array of industries including a biotech company, investment bank, internet services, commercial printer, and a Walmart online ordering processor. New York governor Andrew Cuomo (D.), who is still reeling from the loss of Amazon, told CBS local news on Wednesday he was "sick to my stomach" and it was the "greatest tragedy I have seen since I've been in government." Amazon's deal would have provided $27 billion...

California's socialists are burning through money like there's no tomorrow. And tomorrow might not be coming. California leads the nation in outmigration, and has experienced a domestic outmigration decline since 1991, according to the California Department of Finance. According to a recent survey, 53 percent of all Californians, 63 percent of millennials, and 76 percent of residents in the Bay Area say they are seriously considering leaving the state.

New York State leads the country in an undesirable category. New data from the U.S. Census Bureau says New York tops the nation in population loss. The report says nine states saw a drop in population between July 1, 2017, and July 1, 2018. New York led the way at a loss of 48,510 people.

Did Beto O’Rourke try to flee the scene of his accident in 1998 to avoid being arrested for a DWI? In his debate last week, the Democratic challenger to Sen. Ted Cruz admitted to his “terrible mistake” of drunk driving, “for which there is no excuse or justification or defense,” but insisted that he never tried to flee the scene as the Houston Chronicle reported. O’Rourke turned the debate question away from his own guilt and into an improbable lecture on white privilege, a rather clever political move.But did O’Rourke get away with a lie? Karen Townsend noted the...

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 30, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Francis has directed Cardinal Donald Wuerl to leave the United States “before being arrested” by authorities, Church Militant’s Michael Voris reported this evening. The Washington, D.C. cardinal – successor to disgraced ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick – and former bishop of Pittsburgh, where a recent grand jury report says he helped shuffle around and cover for sex abuser priests, is in hiding while “final plans for sneaking him out of the country are executed,” Voris reported. According to Voris, who says he received this information from reliable sources, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)...

Few people would deny that, as a rule, parents want what is best for their children and keep their children’s needs, including their material needs, in mind when they make important decisions for their families. If this eminently plausible supposition is correct, then there is clear evidence that government-authorized forced unionism makes it more difficult for parents to provide their children with a comfortable standard of living and good prospects for the future. At this time, 22 states have yet to adopt Right to Work laws protecting employees from being forced to pay dues or fees to an unwanted union...

It’s not just luxury-home listings that are piling up in New York City. Even units for less than $1 million — within reach of far more people than a Billionaires’ Row penthouse — are hurting for buyers. In Manhattan, the inventory of sub-$1 million apartments surged 27 percent in June from a year earlier to 3,087, the most for the month since 2013, according to StreetEasy. Such listings jumped 17 percent to 2,738 in Brooklyn, and climbed 6 percent to 2,314 in Queens, a borough usually sought out for its relative affordability. Buyers at all price points are taking their...

According to new research released by Charles Varner, associate director of the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, California lost an estimated 138 high-income individuals following passage of the Proposition 30 income tax increase championed by Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and approved by Golden State voters in 2012. This new research by Varner updates a previous paper released six years ago that looked at domestic migration to and from California following a 2004 income tax hike. “One reason we wanted to update our previous paper is that this tax change in 2012 is the largest state tax change that we...

Seattle cops flee the force in 'mass exodus' due to frustrations with city's politics, report says By Kathleen Joyce | Fox News At least 41 cops have left the Seattle Police Department this year, many of them reportedly citing frustration with the city's politics and a perceived lack of support from local officials. Though documents showed some officers left the force due to retirement, a source in the department told Q13 FOX some 20 officers left and sought employment at other law enforcement agencies. The source also said younger officers "don’t feel appreciated" and the number of those leaving who...

States with high taxes are at risk of losing people, business and money. In fact, conservative economists Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore argue that up to 1.3 million people will leave California, Connecticut, New Jersey, Minnesota and New York over the next three years and move to states with lower taxes. The impact of tax migration is particularly interesting to examine in a state such as Florida, a low-tax swing state that is expected to pick up two Electoral College votes. While the northern area around Orlando contains large communities of conservative-leaning Midwestern migrants, Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton see...

Tracking the rich has become a voyeuristic global industry, a form of celebrity worship. But it can also provide serious clues about where countries are headed. When a country begins to fall into economic and political difficulty, wealthy people are often the first to ship their money to safer havens abroad. The rich don’t always emigrate along with their money, but when they do, it is an even more telling sign of trouble. Since 2013, New World Wealth, a research outfit based in South Africa, has been tracking millionaire migrations by culling property records, visa programs, news media reports and...

With the 2018 midterms months away and the 2020 presidential election cycle approaching rapidly, Democrats are considering how to improve their poor showings in 2014 and 2016. The party has been debating — sometimes heatedly — how to do this. Which voters should they target? How should Democrats target them? But here’s what’s clear: White voters have been fleeing the Democratic Party, and that’s a big reason Democrats are looking to rebound from back-to-back losses. Whites have slowly but consistently moved away from the Democratic Party. These recent losses are on top of Democrats’ losses among Southern whites during the...