If you need proof that liberalism doesn’t work, look no further than California. The state leads the pack when it comes to out-migration (jumping 38% in 2019), and saw their slowest population growth since 1900 this year. It’s not hard to see why.
President Donald Trump recently traded blows with Gov. Gavin Newson over the state’s homelessness crisis – and that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the state’s problems. California hosts 12% of America’s population – but half of the nation’s homeless. While California doesn’t look all too bad when the income statistics are looked at nominally, once you take into account the absurd cost of living in the Sunshine State, they rank #1 in poverty.
In many cases, the homeless exist right beside massive wealth, as can be seen in San Francisco. If liberals are good at one thing, it’s creating societies that only the very rich and very poor can afford to live in.
California is a state of high taxes and redistribution, yet tops the list in poverty, and that’s not the only “contradiction” the state experiences. To name just a few:
- Even though 43 percent of California’s general-fund budget is earmarked for K-14 education, California students under-perform the national average on reading and math scores (source: pages 24 and 25).
- The percentage of Californians attending a four year college hasn’t changed in fifty years, despite the trend nationally being upward.
- During a time period when California’s prison population declined 12%, spending on prison guards increased by $500 million.
- California only builds 44% of the housing it needs annually, costing the State $140 billion a year in economic output due to people who can’t afford to live and work in California (source: page 17).
- Electricity prices in California rose five times faster than the national average between 2011-2017, and Californians pay 60% higher than the national average for electricity. This is despite California having the highest output of hydroelectricity, which is the State’s cheapest source of electricity (source: page 39).
- According to the American Society of Civil Engineers “report card,” California earns a D+.
- CO2 emissions rose in California from 2011-2015 while they fell in the rest of the country during the same period (source: page 26).
- “Despite” having the strictest gun laws in the nation, California had more mass slaying in 2019 than any other state.
The Heritage Foundation calculated in 2015 that every single day there are 1,000 people (on net) who migrate from blue states to red states. I’d be curious to see what the most recent statistics are – because I can’t imagine that figure has done anything but grow.
