My wife and I escaped.. er... moved from CA to Texas a few years ago. 14% state income tax has been replaced by no state income tax at all. Draconian gun laws have been replaced with very reasonable ones. Small freedoms abound... we get plastic bags in grocery stores... no deposits are required on cans and bottles. The $300 we paid our CA city for parking each "POD" we used on the street while loading up in CA was replaced by "no charge" while unloading in Texas. Services are better. TX picks up large trash like furniture and appliances for free on a regular basis along with my used insulin needles. The tiny $765,000 two bedroom one bath hovel I lived in back in San Diego is now a four bedroom, three bath home with jacuzzi and a huge storage barn for less than a third the price. My small Texas town has two huge hospital complexes and the campus of the University Of Houston Medical School, which all added up to helping my wife totally beat cancer last year. Shopping is great and restaurants are the best (we MAKE beef here).Gas prices in Texas typically run close to half what they are in CA (we MAKE oil here). Kids say "Yes, Sir" and "No Ma'am" and play unsupervised and safe all over. Violent crime is all but nonexistent. We don't lock our doors but most people fly the flag every day. In my "redneck" neighborhood I have a doctor living in the house next door, a pharmacist living across the street and an engineering professor from the local college living behind me.
I'm a West Point grad. I was born and raised in New York City (don't tell anyone else that). I have lived all over the US and the world. Spend some time living in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, and similar places and you will appreciate ANY PART of the United States. I have also lived in NY, NJ, MA, PA, and CA. Living in these places makes me totally appreciative for and thankful to Texas. (I found Florida to be a great place too.)