Issues & Insights "The strongest earthquakes to hit California in decades struck last week, leaving behind a few messes and fears of more to come. The most destructive force in the state, though, is not a quivering Earth but the lawmakers who are wrecking what was once a land of promise.
"California has a tragic history with earthquakes." . . .
"Nothing herein is intended to minimize the loss of life and the property damage that has been wrought by California quakes. But as cruel as they are, a steady stream of progressive public policy has the potential to inflict even deeper, and more long-term negative effects.
"Here’s where California is today after two decades of progressive, Blue State governance:
- Executive magazine has named California the worst state for business for 15 straight years.
- California imposes the heaviest regulatory burden on small businesses in the country.
- The business tax climate is worse only in New Jersey.
- Businesses of all sizes continue to flee the state.
- Property rights are being violated at an alarming pace. Just ask the “Central Valley farmers who’ve had their land seized in the name of high-speed rail” and are still waiting to be compensated by the state.
- People are leaving in large numbers, and many who haven’t yet are desperate to escape.
- That is if they are able to leave, because many of the roads and highways leading out are so cracked up they’re hard to navigate. Forty-one states have better systems.
- The state’s unofficial “road diet” means that motorists have to spend more time on the crumbling tracks than they should because the state has the worst traffic congestion on Earth.
- Liberty continues to be crowded out by growing government authority. The Cato Institute ranks California 48th in freedom among the states, a position it has occupied since 2011.
- The state has had the highest poverty level in the country in recent years.
- While California’s public education system is failing, the state has gone to war with charter schools, which are not only popular with parents and students, they raise student achievement.
- The highest average gasoline price is found in California, which not coincidentally also has the highest gasoline tax in the nation.
- Even though it accounts for only 12% of the U.S. population, 25%-30% of the nation’s homeless live in California.
- The runaway public employee pension system threatens to devour the state.
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