California Here I Come
There was a time when everyone wanted to be a Californian. There was a mystique… Hollywood stars, surfers, Beach Boys, Disneyland, Cable Cars climbing halfway to the stars, and the home of the endless summer. Lucy and Ricky Ricardo had a season of “I Love Lucy” about the Golden State. California was cool. Not so much anymore. Songs were written about the state. Lots of them. The most famous, “California Here I Come”. Everybody knows that song. It praises the qualities of the Golden State, flowers blooming, birds singing, a veritable Garden of Eden blessed with climates that range from winter to summer, you pick.
So how come everybody’s leaving? Almost everyone knows someone who has left the bounty of California for the greener pastures of ABC (Anywhere But California). The Census Bureau reported that 300,000 people had moved out of California from July 2021 to July 2022, more than any other state. A congressional seat was lost after the last 2020 Census, due to outward migration.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s driving the evacuation, highest taxes in the nation, a once great school system in the dumpster. Homeless people living cardboard boxes and tents on the sidewalks. Housing costs that make home ownership difficult for young families. Criminals running wild thanks to progressive, weak-kneed District Attorneys. Drug addicts roaming the streets of major cities and using the great outdoors as their personal outhouses. Major corporations are fleeing the state and taking good paying jobs, due to high corporate taxes and wacky business regulations not found in neighboring states. Who created this mess? Don’t blame Trump. Don’t blame the Republicans. The blame lies with the progressive democratic socialists who have run the state into the ground for the last 20 plus years. They hold super majorities in the state senate and assembly, supporting the current progressive democrat governor.
Faced with this reverse migration, California Gov. Gavin Newsom who has presidential ambitions, is encouraging people in seven of the most restrictive pro-life states to come to California for abortions, because his state is the true home of freedom. For example, in Texas, folks will see the following billboard, “Texas doesn’t own your body. You do. Learn more at Abortion.CA.Gov”. the message is the same in six other states. Good old Hair Gel Newsom solution to the massive move out is to encourage abortion tourism. Brilliant. That’s all he’s got to stop the disappearance of residents?
At the recent National Governors’ Conference in Washington DC, one state leader said what many are thinking. Utah Governor Spencer Cox (R) suggested that it would be best for people to “stay in California” rather than flocking to his state as they flee the heavily taxed, heavily regulated, high-crime, Democrat-run Golden State. “We’re having the opposite problem. This last Census confirmed that Utah was the fastest-growing state over the past ten years. So our biggest problems are more growth-related. We would love for people to stay in California rather than coming as refugees to Utah.” Bottom line is a lot of states don’t want to be Californicated.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) wants people to move back to his state as does Governor Kathy Hochal (D) of New York. Sadly, these two along with the Illinois Governor Pritzker have policies that drive residents out and evidently are as dense as the shielding of a nuclear reactor. Somebody let these out of touch pols know how the cow ate the cabbage, as the old adage goes. No one leaves their home state because they hate it. They depart based on what progressives like the aforementioned have done to it during their terms.
In California, there is a clear dissonance between the residents’ definition of governmental success and Sacramento’s. Nothing is improving and stupid regulations are growing by leaps and bounds. Banning oil drilling in the state is just latest looney idea. A state that has the highest energy costs in the nation shoots itself in the foot because the legislature thinks that the “energy fairy” will keep the folks warm and their cars running. Natural gas is on their hit list as well with several cities banning the use of it in new construction. Idiots thinking that they are going to save the environment by ending the use of a gas cooktop. Please.
Most of the evacuees miss their state, the climate, the long-gone mystique, and the pride of being a resident of a state that was once the on cutting edge of societal trends in lifestyle. They all realize that it’s not like that anymore and maybe California will never recover the moniker, “Golden State”.
It looks like it will be a long time until anyone is singing “California Here I Come”, thinking those Golden Gates will open wide again welcoming new residents.