California Unexpectedly Hit by Bad Luck As Top Wealth Producers Flee the State
By streiff | 5:07 PM on December 26, 2023The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.
“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as "bad luck.”
― Robert Heinlein
After nearly two centuries of uninterrupted economic and population growth, California has hit a pothole in the road. There had been a lot of warning signs that the Democrats' hostility to success and achievement was coming home to roost but the first finite, undeniable warning was when California lost a House seat in the 2020 reapportionment. This was the first time in history that California had lost a House seat and marked the end of a run of gains that started with a one-seat gain in the 1860 Census and culminated in a series of 5-7 seat gains between 1910 and 1980. My colleague Ward Clark has more to say about the population shift, particularly the addition of over a hundred thousand low-skill/no-skill immigrants; see The Exodus of Productive Citizens From California Proceeds Apace.
According to the LA Times, the pain is beginning to be felt as the outflow of high-earners (and maximum tax rate payers) is replaced by an inflow of people dependent upon public services.
https://redstate.com/streiff/2023/12/26/california-unexpectedly-hit-by-bad-luck-as-top-wealth-producers-flee-the-state-n2167984
