Some facts are inescapable. California’s Department of Finance recently reported a population drop for the state for the second straight year. The New York Times caught the story and immediately went into obfuscation mode. The Times’s Tim Arango put the blame on Covid deaths, aging boomers, Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration, and the birth dearth. Nonsense. The pandemic’s toll, boomers reaching senescence, shrinking maternity wards, and the effects of enforcing immigration law were either felt across the country or in all border states, and yet, with the exception of California, they still grew, especially Texas. Lies are comforting. They make it easy to never admit that you were wrong. Don’t expect a mea culpa from the state’s one-party mandarins.
The Times is right to mention the state’s previous periods of population decline, as in the 1990’s in the wake of the Cold War’s end. Defense industries such as aerospace took a hit, but even back then, some in the media were reporting that the state’s bureaucratic, regulatory, and taxation nightmares would strangle any rebirth in the crib. The state’s policy fetishes prove that one sure way to clean the air in the LA basin is to kill off manufacturing . . . and run many other businesses out of town. They succeeded.
Where are they heading? You guessed it: any place that likes the ideas of wealth-creation and jobs. In contrast, the California attitude was encapsulated by assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez when informed of Elon Musk’s decision to move Tesla to Austin: “F*ck Elon Musk”.
It doesn’t end with Musk. The state has been flashing the middle finger at businesses like Santa Ana-based Sovereign Flavors for their decision to flee to Kyle, Texas. Likewise, the Twitter vitriol of fanatics like Gonzalez could be leveled at a host of businesses such as Oracle, CRBE (Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis), and McKesson for accessing the Texas escape hatch.
Businesses jump ship, and families run from unaffordable housing and the second-worst schools in the nation, and the prospect of nearly unchecked crime, filth, wildfires, blackouts, and collapsing infrastructure. It’s enough to make any resident sick to their stomach. The residents are plagued with nausea and the ruling clique and their base wallow in falsehoods. Go figure.
RogerG