Over the weekend, we learned that the Golden State loses one taxpayer to another state every minute, and faces an $18 billion budget shortfall, which is $5 billion higher than was projected just a few months ago.
We also learned that only now, 10 months after wildfires destroyed thousands of buildings in the Los Angeles area, has the first home been rebuilt.
These stories are yet more evidence of a completely dysfunctional state captured by ideologues who couldn’t care less about the harm their policies cause. Will voters there ever learn?
The National Taxpayers Union Foundation used IRS data to calculate how many taxpayers are moving into and out of states each year.
What it found was stunning. California is losing taxpayers at a rate of one every 1 minute 44 seconds – the fastest of any state in the nation. That amounts to billions in lost tax revenue every year.
Florida, in contrast, is gaining taxpayers at a rate of one every 2 minutes 9 seconds.
Meanwhile, California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office just reported that the state faces an $18 billion shortfall next fiscal year, which is $5 billion higher than it projected a few months back and which will likely “grow to about $35 billion annually due to spending growth continuing to outstrip revenue growth.”
The report also cautions that even this outlook is optimistic because the current AI stock bubble is masking the state’s dire fiscal situation. California is ridiculously dependent on capital gains taxes. “With so much enthusiasm surrounding AI, it now appears time to take seriously the notion that the stock market has become overheated,” it warns.
The report calls the state’s budget position “weak,” which has to be the understatement of the year.
Next, we come to the weekend story in the Los Angeles Times to find that “The first home has been rebuilt in the wake of the Palisades Fire.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass calls it “an important moment of hope.”
It is anything but that. As the Times itself notes, the Palisades fire destroyed nearly 7,000 buildings, but 10 months later, only 2,000 building permits have been issued and only 340 projects are under construction.
In Atladena, the site of the other massively destructive wildfire in January that claimed some 6,500 buildings, the first home that managed to get an occupancy permit last week was a garage that had been converted into 640-foot “accessory dwelling unit.”
Meanwhile, more than 70% of the Palisades fire victims still live in temporary housing, as are 67% of the victims of the Altadena fires.
Most of them have little hope of ever returning, or seeing their communities rebuilt.
In a separate report, the Los Angeles Times notes that the five most destructive fires from 2017 to 2020 “burned down 22,500 houses.”
But even now, five to eight years later, “just 8,400 — 38% — have been rebuilt.” And “wealthier, flat, suburban areas have tended to rebuild faster than poorer, hilly, rural areas.”
It’s no wonder so many Californians are calling it quits and moving to states that don’t treat them like serfs.
But questions, which were posed in these pages recently, remain: Why do those who don’t or can’t leave put up with it? Why do they keep electing the same cast of criminals who are stealing their money and ruining their state?
Issues & Insights was founded by seasoned journalists of the IBD Editorials page. Our mission is to provide timely, fact-based reporting and deeply informed analysis on the news of the day – without fear or favor.
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