WATCH OUT FOR GAVIN NEWSOM

If You Don’t Want to Live in Newsom’s California

Rumors are hot and heavy that the Dems want to find a way to oust Biden, without giving the nod to Harris.  The major names voiced are Michelle Obama and Gavin Newsom. And given her disdain for her eight years in the White House, my guess is Michelle isn’t going to be the candidate.  But if Newsom comes in, his reality-show looks and proven ability to speak well could buffalo a lot of people.  So, let’s take a gander at the Golden State, as it really is today.      

Crime

There are no safe parts of CA anymore given that the Soros-funded DAs won’t prosecute and our laws go easy on perps.  Imagine the challenge for cops; arrest people and find them out on the street, showing you their middle finger.  And illegals get off even more easily.  I’m considering a monitoring system for my house now.

Homelessness

Not only do we have the failed “Housing First” policy, which spends over $650K per homeless person to give them a more permanent residence without requiring anything on their part—no job training, allowed to keep drinking and taking drugs, permitted to ignore their psych meds.  We also have open markets and “safe spaces” to consume drugs, generally close to where the homeless are housed.  We have more homeless per capita than any other state, primarily because the benefits are so generous (and the weather is good).  With a constant increase in the number and with very few people getting out of the system, this failed approach has to go.  But it won’t.  It’s only getting worse, costing us way too much.

Housing

We supposedly have a housing crisis, though, if you refuse to work and become homeless, you can get housing.  There are several factors at work here.  One, the regulatory environment makes building apartments or houses prohibitively expensive.  They cost more to us because they cost a lot more to the builder.  You can’t mandate cheaper housing without lifting the regulatory burden.  This is a reason that many Red states are still affordable.

Next, CA keeps passing laws to make owning property less desirable.  Prop 19 made it costly to pass down family businesses or property to your children, so why own?  And if you own rental property, how did you make out during Covid and beyond, when the state mandated rent moratorium?  Landlords with small property holdings went bankrupt while watching fully employed people take off for jobs while refusing to pay rent.  And even if someone couldn’t pay, an owner has substantial bills to cover, including maintenance, taxes, mortgage and insurance.  How were they to survive?  Finally, the recent spate of rental control rules puts the renter in charge.  Try kicking someone out, even if they are damaging your place, failing to pay rent or even committing crimes on your property.  The system will be fast to penalize you as the owner, but the renter is treated like a king.  Why would anyone want to offer property for rent here?  This translates to much higher rental prices.

Education

By law, the state gives the lion’s share of our tax revenue to the schools.  As some of the best funded school systems in the nation, how well are they doing?  Even given the lax testing performed here, only around 40% met or exceeded grade levels in reading; in math, the number is in the low 30’s.  At the same time, anyone who can pull their kids out has done so, which also leaves the kids at most risk in problem-plagued schools.  While your kids are learning DEI, ESG and how to hate each other and our country, they are failing to prepare for a future.  This is one of the reasons many children are still living at home in their 30’s.  They simply aren’t qualified for career jobs.

The schools keep demanding more bond measures to improve schools, but somehow, nothing ever seems to happen, while we owe interest on all those bonds.  Teachers constantly demand better pay—for the children—but they only work nine months of the year.  Factor their salaries by that and they don’t look all that shabby.

Taxes

Every time a D has a brain f-rt, a new program is introduced that will require increases in taxes.  There’s no spending they don’t like, as long as these self-proclaimed “elites” can shield themselves from it.  They want to tax wealth, which in my mind, is a Constitutional violation, but it hasn’t been tested yet.  What does that mean?  For every one of us, it means that if your house increases in value year-to-year, you have to pay a tax, even if you don’t actually see any money out of it. Same with your IRAs, 401Ks, or any other investment instrument.  Presumably, you’d get money back if you had a loss, but they don’t plan to offer that.  It will affect everyone.  So, the more money wasted on schools, illegals, progressive programs and “greenity”, the less you will have to spend on your family.

Costs

We have “special” gas in the summer, with no proof that it actually improves anything. But it makes the oil companies produce something no one else wants, which costs more. We also have pretty high gas taxes, which nominally go to improve our roads, but have been siphoned off for other purposes. As the same time, electric cars are given incentives, but they use the roads they do not pay for.  Sound fair?  Talk now is of taxing by the mile so everyone pays, but this penalizes those who commute long distances because they cannot afford to live close to their jobs.  Talk about a Catch-22.

Everything in the state costs more.  When you travel, you can be surprised by how much farther your dollar goes (as long as you stay out of Blue states.)  But CA manages to get more of your money because we also pay extremely high sales tax.  Newsom moans that he can’t up your property tax more, but that is literally the only tax we aren’t being screwed with.   And it keeps going up, but fortunately, not like the rest.

Leaving CA

There’s a reason many are leaving the state, even as many feel reluctant to go.  We have great weather, there are many things to like here.  But government isn’t one of them.  I don’t have the data, but I suspect more than 50% of our residents are on some form of dole.  Perhaps what needs to happen is that we restrict voting to taxpayers.  If you’re not filing, you’re not voting.   That would at least keep people from voting more and more largesse to themselves. 

We have to vote these politicians out, but unfortunately, they are well-funded by Hollywood, tech companies and Soros.  So, maybe I’ll be leaving some day myself.  It’s just not as great here, anymore. 

And keep Gavin Newsom out of the White House; we can’t afford him.