A well written piece from the UK Telegraph
It takes a kind of malignant genius to destroy California, but the state’s ruling elites are well on their way to assure its decline. If the downward spiral continues, it will stand as a testament to the insane variety of progressive policies that have driven middle and working class people, as well as numerous companies, out of the state.
No place on earth came into this century with more going for it than California. It is a naturally beautiful state, home to some of the world’s mildest climates, enormously fertile both in its land and its people. It has long been the epicenter of technology, entertainment and space exploration: the last great Western dominated industries.
Yet today California suffers among the US’ highest rates of unemployment, the highest percent living poverty and massive net outmigration. The causes here are manifold, but they start with climate policy. Ever since Jerry Brown returned to office in 2011, the state has made climate policy not just a priority, but an obsession. Virtually every major state initiative from housing and energy to economic growth hinges around climate catastrophism and the need for California to lead the battle to stop it.
These climate-centric policies are no winner for most Californians. Indeed, as the state ratcheted up its regulations, the effect has disproportionately hurt working class and ethnic minority families (roughly 40 per cent of the state’s population is Latino). The highest energy prices in continental US and draconian regulations have reduced potential employment in key blue-collar industries such as logistics, manufacturing, and home construction.
The impact of California’s regulatory regime also extends to the middle class, who pay among the country’s highest taxes, and groan under the nation’s most prolific series of regulations. By slowing and even stopping new housing growth in the less expensive periphery, California has become the state home to seven of the nation’s ten least-affordable housing markets.
Perhaps the biggest blow to the middle class has come in terms of jobs. A Hoover Institution report released last year observed that in 2020 California had only one-seventh the number of company-initiated capital projects than did the leading state, Texas. Additionally, from 2018 to 2021, 352 companies headquartered in California moved their headquarters out.
To be sure, the presence of four of the highest-valued tech firms – Meta, Google, Apple, and Nvidia – is likely to create enormous wealth for the Silicon Valley oligarchy and their satraps. But even these tech jobs are increasingly moving elsewhere. California has seen its share of the nation’s advanced-industry jobs stagnate while jobs in advanced industries to lower-income-tax states.
A shrinking middle class and a growing exodus of upper class taxpayers – who pay much of the state’s taxes – has now brought about the inevitable fiscal reckoning in the form of a record $68 billion deficit; the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office predicts continued operating deficits through 2028, a consequence of spending that has tripled on a per capita cost adjusted basis over the last fifty years. Meanwhile, prime competitor states like Texas and Florida enjoy large budget surpluses.
To be sure, California does retain some cultural advantages, and its abortion friendly policies certainly provide some edge against the draconian policies enacted in places like Florida. But the state uber-progressive policies also include less popular features such as granting undocumented immigrants, hard working or not, free emergency healthcare, as middle and working class Californians pay ever higher premiums. California also allows children to change gender without parental approval, and seeks to extract billions in reparations for slavery in a state that never allowed the possession of slaves.
These policies are depriving California of the human capital critical to its innovation economy. This is made more critical given that California’s K-12 system fails to educate; less than half meet national standards for literacy, and for African Americans, American Indians and Hispanic/Latino the figure drops to less than a third. Math results are even worse.
Not surprisingly California, which welcomed a net total of 1.7 million people from domestic migration between 2016 and 2022, now ranks towards the bottom in attracting newcomers. The erosion now includes both middle class educated professionals, whose exodus increased sharply since 2019, as well as lower income migrants. The state’s Department of Finance has already predicted that LA County will lose more than a million people in the coming years.
Is there any way to reverse these nightmarish trends and restore the California dream? Governor Gavin Newsom, the wannabe next President, certainly finds himself increasingly unpopular with Californian voters, suggesting any fixes are unlikely to be quick. The very demographic trends that the state’s policies exacerbate mean that conservative and middle of the road voters will keep leaving, while progressive oriented and government dependent state workers and the low-income will remain.
We may someday appreciate Newsom, as well as Jerry Brown, as having been relatively sane compared to what is coming next. Newsom, the consummate opportunist and long time ally of the tech oligarchy, has begun to oppose progressives on issues like keeping the state’s last nuclear plant alive and a proposed wealth tax that could further accelerate the already devastating flow of affluent people out of the state.
But Newsom’s successors seem less concerned about economic sustainability than their climate, gender, and race fixations. One highly regarded successor, Attorney General Rob Bonta, is a long time backer of a wealth tax, and a particular devotee of controversial “criminal justice reform”. The results of these policies can be seen on the streets of California’s cities. Overall the state has 30 per cent of the nation’s homeless population, with some now living in caves, while the state suffers the highest crime rate in a decade.
Don’t expect much from the state’s once proud GOP. Virtually all the levers of power seem likely to remain for the foreseeable future in the hands of progressives. Until elements of the Democratic coalition like the tech oligarchs or working-class ethnic minorities begin to bolt, there’s little chance of a political turnaround, or a meaningful restoration of the California dream.
