I disagree with your assessment that Texas has wide acceptance for opposing viewpoints, at least out in the suburbs where I grew up. If you were not religious and conservative (I have my own anecdotes), you did not fit in. Only when I went to college in a college town did people largely seem to want to live and let live. Sure, inside the larger cities it is more cosmopolitan, for lack of a better word, but lots of people live in the 'burbs and around the smaller areas and do not get the benefit of this peaceful coexistence. For example, to this day I do not recommend being openly gay and living near Tyler.
If someone moved to Texas, they made a choice to accept it and I will not knock people for their individual choices. But my experience is not that the prevailing view is open acceptance of people of all stripes like found in other parts of the country.
The whole system has been optimized to milk as much money as possible from newcomers. The people in power in California even scapegoated the newcomers for a long time, and pretended that they were unwanted. Now that the system has finally become unsustainable, we get these ridiculous takes about how somebody "extracted wealth" from California.
The words "luxury housing" are designed to make you think that it is taking up space that could be used by non luxury housing. Like the only reason a new apartment is so expensive is because it has a gold-plated toilet or something, and if only the developer had built an apartment without a gold plated toilet you could afford it. But in Minneapolis, for example, a 2 bedroom apartment in the nicest building in the city, with a built in pool, car wash, and cigar lounge, is $2000 per month. That barely gets you a spot in someone's living room in SF.
This proves that it is not luxuries that make "luxury apartments" expensive in SF. The only luxury is having a roof over your head.
If a community says 'we'd rather be homes and don't want to turn everything in to high-rises' then that's entirely their discretion.
It's definitely not any individual townships moral or civic responsibility to change their community to accommodate either state/national strategic planning, especially for the benefit of people who do not even live there.
There's plenty of physical space in Cali, if anything, the opportunity might be in Sacramento and in-between. If the FAANGs having trouble with salaries and bringing in people want, they can be part of this strategy.
I bet there are thousands of G staffers who'd live to live somewhere south of Morgan Hill, away from the city.
People who want change are free to leave. Only when there are no other places to leave to will there be change.
I feel like the average HN poster sits in a pretty air-tight STEM bubble and doesn't realise how bad life for most people in the Bay Area who are not in STEM. To them, tech workers can leave and the industry can tank and it would be a welcome change. The tax revenue the cities have made during this "boom" have not affected them at all. Building more houses just means more traffic, more crowded hiking trails and beaches, more crowded and trashed natural parks, and for what?
They think it has not affected them, but if they stop, the house of cards that is underfunded ultra-generous defined benefit state/municipal pensions tumbles like a house of cards. When the munis start going bankrupt, only then will people notice...
CA is as expensive as it is in large part because of NIMBYs and tax schemes that were absolutely the product of right-wing ballot initiatives for the most part. OTOH, a large part of the appeal of TX is that it doesn't have a state income tax, but the state is absolutely on the dole. IIRC TX takes in ~$150b from the Federal government, but only pays ~$100b into the system. CA (like NY) pays more into the system then it takes out, so about ~$50b of the annual budget of TX is literally bumming money from other states, albeit indirectly.
Which is a roundabout way of saying, the narrative about people moving from CA to TX often makes it sound like a narrative about left-wing economic policies vs. right-wing economic policies, but the reality is that CA is expensive in large part because of right-wing economic policies and TX is cheap in large part because it's basically on welfare from the Federal government. Which is fine, the system should allow economically healthier states to help the less successful states get by (looking at you KY), but it's so counter to the narrative that usually surrounds these stories that people tend to sweep it under the rug. And also TX is hardly an economically unhealthy, depressed state in need of assistance from the rest of the country. It should step up and stop being being a bum, because AFAICT it's not a bum but rather a state with well above-average prospects.
This isn't true. According to the SUNY Rockefeller Institute of Government report dated Jan 8, 2019 (which used the data from the Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2019) the fifty states all had differing Federal expenditures vs Federal receipts but Texas and California were close. See page 15 at [1].
On a per capita basis, here are the federal expenditures per dollar of receipts for a few states:
Connecticut 0.74 50th
New Jersey 0.82 49th
Massachusetts 0.83 48th
New York 0.86 47th
North Dakota 0.94 46th
Illinois 0.97 45th
New Hampshire 0.98 44th
Washington 0.98 43rd
Nebraska 0.98 42nd
Colorado 0.99 41st
California 1.00 40th <=== CA
Texas 1.03 39th <=== TX
Utah 1.04 38th
Wisconsin 1.06 37th
Wyoming 1.06 36th
Minnesota 1.09 35th
Iowa 1.13 34th
Nevada 1.14 33rd
South Dakota 1.15 32nd
Kansas 1.23 31st
Florida 1.24 30th
...
Virginia 1.97 6th
Alabama 1.99 5th
West Virginia 2.17 4th
Mississippi 2.19 3rd
New Mexico 2.34 2nd
Kentucky 2.35 1st
This is patently false. Property taxes can and do raise 2%/year.
California does need to build new housing.
Compared to 2020 Anywhere, 2000 Anywhere was a very bigoted place.
This really is not true, in many big cities it was another common facet of life that people were by and large apathetic about at that point.
Even Tyler has changed. (old article, but still)
https://www.advocate.com/society/activism/2009/09/29/gays-ta...
If Texas voters will finally vote in someone who is more like Ann Richards than Greg Abbott, I will believe the mindset is changing. Statewide votes for Governor, Lite Gov, Comptroller, and so on are not gerrymandered so a vote in San Antonio counts just as much as a vote in Midland.
(To your first question, I have not lived in Texas for over a decade, but I am the only member of my family who does not so I have pretty close connections to this day.)
All it takes is realizing changing X rule like a deadline will help or hurt your party and then voting based on that rule. Eventually this can fail, which oddly enough tends to flip states so they can quickly go from solidly party A to solidly party B.
It’s not that people are choosing to insulate - the metros are where the jobs are. Those metros have been changed by the influx of people, and if there were jobs the suburbs you would see the electorate change there as well.
I think the problem with this is that it rests on a fundamental assumption that someone's primary motivation for voting Republican is bigotry. Polls by the Pew Foundation do not bear this out. Non-college educated Democrats and Republicans have equally wrong knowledge about what people on the other side of the spectrum believe. College educated Republicans match their numbers. The outliers are college educated Democrats. They, by far, have the most distorted view of what right wing people ACTUALLY believe. It goes both ways of course, with conservatives dramatically underestimating the patriotism of liberals, etc.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/21/democr...
When I lived in Arkansas, the voters simultaneously voted for a Republican governor and state house, AND a ballot initiative to significantly raise the state minimum wage, as well as a ballot initiative for medical marijuana.
The GOP politicians were all against these measures, but the voters approved them by large majorities.
The point I'm making is that the politicians on both sides aren't in step with the electorate, even if they are chosen by the electorate. People are voting for the lesser of two evils a lot more than we give them credit for.
California may seem like it's 100% different, but that's mostly because people only know San Francisco, LA, and the other coastal cities. CA has its other parts, too.
Put on a "Make America Great Again" hat and walk through downtown Chicago, San Francisco, Ann Arbor, or Cambridge before or after election day 2016 (or 2020). Now, put on a "I'm With Her" or "Biden/Harris 2020" shirt and walk through Provo, Fort Worth, or Pensacola before or after election day. In which scenario are you more like to be yelled at and/or physically attacked?
The "dysfunction" is more likely a function of population density as it is a unique California thing. Watching local Austin news - definitely some familiar problems - gentrification, what to do about the homeless/crime, pollution, desires to raise taxes, traffic.
It's not as though California was always unicorns and rainbows, either.
Compare that to the dirty looks I got walking around SF in a Buck-ees hat that happened to be red. It bordered upon comedy.
Man sent to jail for attack on man wearing MAGA hat: https://www.fox5dc.com/news/man-who-attacked-maga-hat-wearin...
And an article about other incidents around the country: https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/attacks-trump-supporters...
49ers hats are not bright red, and tend to be fairly distinctive.
Anecdote time - my buddy sometimes wears a red hat with the California bear on it, and he regularly (as in without fail) gets dirty looks because of it. I personally stopped wearing my red Nike running hat in public last year because of the reactions I'd get. For context, we live in a relatively conservative East Bay suburb of Northern California.
2) Politically motivated violence is rare in the US and right-wing violence obviously exists as well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Portland_train_attack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlottesville_car_attack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2018_United_States_mai...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_synagogue_shooting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_boogaloo_killings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretchen_Whitmer_kidnapping_pl...
Implying that people who enjoy wearing red hats should avoid SF is like telling liberals to not open their mail. It's absurd.
3) They definitely make 49er hats in bright red:
https://www.rallyhouse.com/assets/images/products/59001909-1...
https://m.hatland.com/prodimg/m1/49ers-super-bowl-xxiii-gold...
https://www.neweracap.com/medias/sys_master/root/h75/h28/891...
https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/1f6093f0-cbdc-42ac-a096-c65...
For those who doubt you, I ask them to ponder the following:
Put on a "Make America Great Again" hat and walk through downtown Chicago, San Francisco, Ann Arbor, or Cambridge before or after election day 2016 (or 2020). Now, put on a "I'm With Her" or "Biden/Harris 2020" shirt and walk through Provo, Fort Worth, or Pensacola before or after election day. In which scenario are you more like to be yelled at and/or physically attacked?
There are plenty of conservative places that would be upset to see Harris / Biden attire. Look no further than the classic Top Gear episode with the Gay Pride car and the Clinton car driving through the south.
That doesn't sound very specific of Texas, that's the case pretty much everywhere
A couple years ago I was at a bar in Marfa, Texas - a small art-centric town that gets a lot of tourism for things like it's fake Prada store (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prada_Marfa) - and overheard a few guys celebrating a birthday. They were all clearly gay, which isn't unusual in Marfa. I started talking with them and it turned out that one of them, who was black, had just bought a ranch a half hour north of Marfa outside the town of Fort Davis. Fort Davis also has a bit of a touristy feel with its exaggerated "old western town" look and because it's right outside Fort Davis State Park, but culturally it's no Marfa.
The fact that an openly gay black man felt comfortable buying farmland in a small Texas town was pretty awesome. I have a hard time believing that would've happened even 10 years ago. In fact, he might be the first.
I hope he still likes it there.
I've never heard anyone in Tyler scream at random strangers calling them "f*t". But that does seem to be a pretty much daily occurrence from the illustrious cast of characters that hang out around the Powell Street BART station.
You might not have heard it because they've already hammered down all the nails around you that stick out.
Notice he's "fleeing" after he made his billions.
The Texas you grew up in is not the same as Texas today. Places change. People change. Look at a county-by-county map of the election results.
What did he extract from California? Was he on welfare?
[1] https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-201...
Houston is literally the most diverse city in America, statistically speaking.
And you have to look hard to find religiously conservative people in any Texas metro that are also exclusionary. I say that as someone neither white nor Christian.
If anything, the only place you may find a lack of diversity is Austin, which is overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly intolerant of non-leftist opinions.
I hear this claim from time to time but I’d like to know what it means concretely. Do you mean things like churches being closed due to COVID, or some sort of anti-white racism existing in Austin on the one hand while on the other hand racism isn’t prevalent outside of Austin?
Austin is trying to turn in a smaller scale version of San Francisco, complete with needles and shit on the streets.
Nothing about that is "great". I'll take Fort Worth over that any day.
Well, live and let live sounds pretty ideal, given that in several places across California conservative opinions are not tolerated.
Maybe we agree that a college town in Texas it's a place where opposing viewpoints can still coexist?
I think that people underestimate just how common this very same thing is here in California.
> but lots of people live in the 'burbs and around the smaller areas and do not get the benefit of this peaceful coexistence
Again, very similar to California.
I grew up in California and moved to Texas for 13 years, and have recently (begrudgingly too) moved back to California. Things have not changed a whole lot here. Once you get out of the cities and into more rural areas, it's about the same as you'd experience anywhere else.
> If someone moved to Texas, they made a choice to accept it and I will not knock people for their individual choices.
Sucks if you're gay and are born near Tyler. In case others will knock you for something that wasn't even a choice to begin with.
It's odd because I grew up in a major metro, and going to college I found people in college to be very strict and severe about enforcing their morals on people. You had to use specific language, be nice and more forgiving and understanding to the right groups of people, and you were not supposed to disagree on specific subjects of discussion or you'd be a pariah.
The idea that this is "live and let live" is silly. It seems that way to you because your morals align very closely with the morals of people in a college setting. If they didn't, you'd notice the similarities to an orthodox religious community immediately.
Any society will try to grind your unique edges off to more smoothly fit into their culture. Perhaps you were more inclined to explore liberalism or intellectualism (more prone to be the culture around colleges) or had had enough of conservative religiousness. I had that same kind of inclination from ~18-30 years old.
I have seen plenty of discrimination and judgment coming from 'the right' in my upbringing (usually directed toward others). But now that I'm much more center road and no longer extremist leftist, I am experiencing increasing hostility from my still left leaning friends/groups.
I hope that the internet can somehow transform into a vehicle of understanding rather than a vehicle of argument. Maybe video comments would be more helpful in this regard.
Unfortunately many of those leaving don't realize the policies they voted for are the main cause of this mess and might repeat the same thing in the new areas.
It's not perfect by any means but you could easily draw up a similar list for any state. A state is a big area and it's probably more useful to talk about most of these kinds of things at a local level.
This isn't true at all. Since prop 47, property crime has exploded across the state. Even violent crime rates are significantly higher in LA than they were in 2010.[2][3] In particular gang-on-gang violence may be moving the homicide rate lower, but predator-on-prey violence has shot up. Rapes have more than doubled in the past decade.
> From Seattle to Los Angeles, a “shoplifting boom” is hitting major retailers, which deal with thousands of thefts, drug overdoses, and assaults each year. Since 2010, thefts increased by 22 percent in Portland, 50 percent in San Francisco, and 61 percent in Los Angeles
[1] https://www.city-journal.org/west-coast-shoplifting-boom [2] http://www.laalmanac.com/crime/cr02.php [3] https://abc7.com/murder-los-angeles-crime-covid/7185695/
Do you have any source that states that this increase is actually due to more crimes taking place, rather than more victims reporting rapes due to shifting attitudes and/or less fear of societal rebuke? It could very well have been under-reported in the past due to stigma and other reasons.
These kind of societal factors can often affect the number of reported rapes more than the actual crime rate does. And we absolutely know that the attitude toward sexual violence and misconduct has changed a lot in the last decade. So it is reasonable to believe that this had had some effect on the increase of reported sexual violence, especially since most other violent crime has had sharp declines.
Summary of the provided source for people scrolling past:
Since 2010, homicide had a 21% decrease, robbery a 14% decrease, aggravated assault a 25% increase, and rape a 94% increase.
The contrast is even more sharp when looking 20 years back:
Since 2000, homicide had a 52% decrease, robbery a 35% decrease, aggravated assault a 47% decrease, and rape a 41% increase.
Also, police departments and mayors have every incentive to keep reported crime lower. The LAPD, for instance, has a history of underclassifying crimes to maintain appearances that their city was safe: https://www.latimes.com/local/crime/la-me-lapd-reclass-20141...
Also, the OP specifically pointed to 10-year statistics, not 20. Isn't it at all concerning that we're erasing all the progress we've made over the course of decades?
Property arrests and crimes are actually down, while violent crime has increased.
Interestingly, just as a comparison, Texas has as many rapes despite having somewhere around 10M less people.[1]
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QgrfJvfa8XaVm0MEfU4j...
CA provides sanctuary status for illegal immigrants, along with driver licenses, free healthcare and other benefits paid for by tax-paying citizens. Traffic is terrible because of a lack of any other alternatives that are routinely defunded, destroyed and dismissed from high-speed rail to bus lines to ridesharing.
CA is now worse than before. It's also worse than many other places. Just because 1 facet is better than somewhere else doesn't impact the objective collective decline. Again, please name 10 things that have gotten better in CA over the last decade if you can.
I've been a California resident for over 20 years. Feel free to come down to LA and I'll walk you through the actual streets from downtown to Inglewood. We can even visit a few prisons where I can introduce you to people on both sides of the law, visit the various homeless areas, and talk to the gang task force and DEA agents. Maybe we can also go down to the border and see how things are.
Or perhaps are you too used to a single media perspective and have little experience with the reality on the ground?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QgrfJvfa8XaVm0MEfU4j...
https://www.foxnews.com/us/california-prop-47-shoplifting-th...
https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/05/14/shoplifting-cal...
Why are you suspicious? When you stop arresting people for crimes and allow criminal behavior then you get more crime. This is so correlated as to be mathematical fact. This is no different to NY removing bail and then being surprised that criminals walk right out of the courthouse and back to their operations the same day while being further emboldened by these policies.
Many think there isn't much crime because they're usually sheltered from it by distance and police activity. It only takes a small gap to notice how bad conditions can get, and how quickly they deteriorate.
Also, it's really...strange...to place the blame for the fires or the weather at the foot of the state.
Why is your only defense picking single skewed metrics and comparing it to separate places? Are you going to compare CA as a whole against TX or would that reveal your bias?
You still haven't answered what has gotten better in CA over the last 10 years so I'm going to end this here.
EDIT for your newly added last line: I thought about this and figured that HN readers would understand that "weather isn't great either" was in addition to the other issues and even specifically wrote "main cause" in the hopes that nobody would conflate the issues but here we are. But yes fires are mostly due to poor planning and infrastructure. Wildfires are the most preventable disaster but California has gotten to the point where insurance companies are proactively cancelling policies because of the fire damage.
I see these easily debunked anti-immigration talking points regularly elsewhere on the web in right-wing circles, but I'm surprised to see it on HN.
I encourage anyone interested in the reality of immigration(including the common myths like the above) to either read Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration, or watch a short talk on the subject here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6wGLhEW_uc
Feel free to actually respond to the specific policies that are affecting the state of California instead. Here's just 1 example to get you started: Illegal immigrants have free healthcare until the age of 26 in California, however tax-paying law-abiding citizens are fined if they don't have health insurance.
Mostly because it got more crowded. As a CA resident, if you don't like CA, please DO move out. It will help traffic, for one.
If ALL you care about is a big house and taxes, then CA is probably not for you. As soon as you walk outside your TX McMansion, you may realize why CA is so crowded.
So what? That means more people and tax revenue to solve problems. There are plenty of very dense areas around the world run just fine. This is a failure of policy not population. If people are such a problem then maybe tax-paying law-abiding citizens should be prioritized over illegal immigration.
> "If ALL you care about is a big house and taxes, then CA is probably not for you... you may realize why CA is so crowded."
Who said that? Your dismissive and defensive attitude along with blaming completely irrelevant details like population is the reason why CA and its voting populace is in the state that it's in.
Please list what has gotten better in CA over the last 10 years or I'll assume you have no argument.
I'm not the state government though, I'm an individual with a life outside of my house. When the majority of the time for any activity outside of my house is sitting in traffic or waiting in lines, it's difficult to enjoy the area you live in. For this reason, I find myself heading further and further out of town to find areas or activities that aren't completely congested. Tax revenue won't make the lines shorter or traffic less. To do either would require bulldozing all of the housing and building up, at least where I am. Unfortunately, whenever this is done, luxury condos or apartments are the result, with rent that's higher than a mortgage, even for around here.
If you don't spend your weekends fly-fishing Big Pine Creek, 4x4ing the Mojave Road, climbing at Joshua Tree, grabbing burritos and craft beer at Grand Central Market, and swimming out to the mile-buoys at La Jolla Cove, why stay? If your eyes don't light up when you hear 'Clifton's Cafeteria,' or 'Pappy and Harriet's,' or 'half-day boat' what on earth are you doing here?
This state is one of the most unique and incredible places in the country. I can drive from the lowest point in the continental United States (Badwater) to the foot of the highest point (Whitney) in a couple of hours. That's absolutely magical. I love this state with a deep passion, and I know many of its nooks and crannies (still exploring and learning). That's why I will never leave.
If you don't do any of that stuff and you just sit in a bubble writing code all day why on earth would you stay? Just takes parking away from the people that actually enjoy California for the magical place that it is.
I'm happy to pay higher taxes. It helps keep this state humming along as the 5th largest economy on the planet.
Tens of thousands per year in state income tax. The nation's highest sales tax on top of that and we barely even afford school buses for my kids.
Why? Because all that tax revenue is going into my landlords already fat pockets. Prop 13 is over $30B per year -- that's 4x the size of the NSF and $7B larger than NASA. That stupid law ruined the state and I don't fault anyone for leaving. I'm trying to figure a way out to.
Prop 13 is pretty controversial, and considering it bullshit it not something I would consider unreasonable.
I wish you the best wherever life takes you.
Still, why can't there be a beautiful place with lower taxes? If taxes are enough to drive people away from a breathtaking place, maybe they're too high.
I've been very grateful to have non-extreme weather throughout the year. I am looking outside at a sunny sky right now and I will go walking on a path shortly to clear my mind. For someone with high allergies, I found that I am not allergic to trees, pollen, and grass in LA. I've had several nasal surgeries in the past to fix issues from allergies. I didn't want to risk it in Austin with different plant landscape.
Population growth without commensurate growth in housing. You can add people, but you gotta let them build houses. If you don't, then prices rise, for reasons that are very easy to understand if you're not financially (or otherwise) motivated to find them confusing.
Same complaints: cost of living / taxes, quality of life, and kids' education.
The only thing keeping me here is my current job and clear opportunities for future [tech] jobs. If WFH became the norm, I'm out of here in 50 milliseconds. There are probably a lot of people like me.
Granted, $120k-150 for a single earner is plenty to live a good life in Texas, even in the cities (as long as you don't have excessive personal debts). Something to think about that I'm sure you've probably considered.
Anecdotal, but everyone I know who left California recently did so due to the high cost of housing, not because of their tax liabilities or a plastic straw ban. Kinda hard to be upset about having to give 9% of your income to the state when you have to give 50% if your income to the landlord (for an 80 year old, 350 sq ft studio heated by radiator in my case when I lived there).
Sorry for noseing-in, but could you elaborate on the part that affects the kids? What sort of factors are there, or what kind of expectations?
A cynic would see this as a dog-whistle for "too many Asians/Hispanics/foreigners". (And I have actually heard a white person here in California say that about the schools.)
I suspect though you mean something else.
It's remarkable how "I don't like the Bay Area" translates so easily to "racist dogwhistle".
Quality of life means things like:
- "there are children in my neighborhood"
- "I don't need to keep looking over my shoulder at the playground with my children"
- "I can get a 15-yr mortgage on a house that is 2000 sqft, be financially stable, and safely deal with recurring large medical expenses that we will always have due to pre-existing conditions"
- Massive seasonal forest fires that have become normalized
- Risk (however small) of a catastrophic earthquake
- Dangerous public transport
- Piles of feces, needles, and general filth on (some) city sidewalks
- Daily bumper-to-bumper traffic on freeways from 8AM-11AM and 1PM-6PM
- Extreme regulatory burden and cost of normal things like starting a business, building a home or addition, and owning firearms
Although in all fairness, I am not aware of the drug situation in other parts of the country.
The problem is that most people on HN, and elsewhere on the internet, got everything they know about Texas from watching cartoons on TV. (Same for their knowledge of religion.)
They enjoy repeating half-century-old stereotypes while turning a blind eye to their own region's failings. It's geographic fanboyism.
/Lived in Texas for five years. Also lived in 13 other states. Would return to Texas if the opportunity arose.
No one is knocking Texas per se.
Edit: the reason I ask the question is that I've noticed a trend among people from very left-leaning areas to define anyone slightly right of center as being "far-right". I've been called "far-right" because of beliefs that were typical of moderate Democrats in the 1990s.
What label that leaves for people like actual Nazis, fascists, neo-Confederates, etc, I'm not sure. Far-far-far right?
The virtue signaling left has made it to the point that words don't mean what they should anymore because they crank things up to 100 every time they accuse anybody of anything.
Excellent example.
For the record, I support civil rights protections for all humans, including gays on the basis on sexual orientation. I disagreed then with most of Bill Clinton's policies toward gay rights (I also strongly supported making marriage a uniquely civil institution vis-a-vis government recognition available to all citizens, like France).
By the way, you know who else had that exact same views on gay rights as Bill Clinton when he entered office?
Barack Obama.
Was he "far right" in 2008?
I don't know your exact situation at all and criticism of you may indeed have been unfair. But for fucks sake don't try to make a case that you're not far-right by looking to the behavior of people in the past. That indicates strongly you may indeed have backwards views that are 30's years out of date.
In addition alot of the far left is pinning 'nazi' or 'facsict' on any politician or idea that does not meet their ever changing ideas. Even feminists are now getting trampled on if their ideas don't meet up to the week culture temperature checks.
(I say people because the same thing occurs in reverse when talking about "extremist leftists")
What constitutes center right, center, center left in your view?
And my specific viewpoint in question? That all people should be treated equally, and given equal opportunity, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
I will die with that belief, even if 99% of the population believes otherwise.
If you're saying that anyone who was professionally successful in California has no right to ever leave the state, that seems like a tough sell.
I left California for Nevada many years ago, and I subsequently sold stock I accumulated while in California without paying state income tax.
It is legal and you can do it, but there are a lot of legal hurdles. They're pretty well documented around page 5 of FTB 1031 [1].
In my case, I quit my W2 job in California, entered into a contract to lease a home in NV, got rid of all leased or owned real estate in CA, sold or re-titled all motor vehicles from CA, registered to vote in NV, surrendered my CA driver license for a new NV license, re-titled all my financial accounts at my new address, got a NV phone number, etc.
This was all easy because I was single without children. If my situation was more complicated, like I had a spouse or ex-spouse with children enrolled in CA schools, or decided to retain owned real estate in CA, the situation can quickly fall into a gray zone.
If you have a W2 job in CA while claiming you're in NV, it's very hard to escape the CA FTB.
CA is very aggressive about chasing down its former residents. It's important to check all the boxes to get them from chasing you.
After I left, I filed non-resident CA returns for three years basically saying, "I had income but I am not a resident and it was not from a CA source, therefore I owe no CA tax." This is important because it starts the statute of limitations running. If you don't file, the statute of limitations doesn't start.
And while I'm writing all this: what in the world is up with a 13.3% state tax bracket? Screw California.
[1] https://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/2019/2019-1031-publication.pdf
If you move from California to another country, and are subject to US Federal Income tax, and don't qualify for an exemption, the Franchise Tax Board still considers you a resident of the state, and as such, taxes you on your worldwide income; as you did not end your residency by establishing residency in another state.
But, as much as i am a lefty(+capitalist), that seems a fault of the state. States should expect this more imo. You give near negative returns to companies to come to your state and then you're shocked when they leave and you haven't gotten your ROI?
But maybe this will be good. If the migration continues perhaps California will have to stop subsidizing low-tax states and let them fend for themselves more.
Does California invest money/resources to companies? Or is it more of an indirect thing, such as maintaining roads and bridges?
Why are businesses choosing to hop off the California gravy train? Is the gravy not worth the taxes? Is the gravy just hyperbole?
"The far-left managed to create an "amazing" (and terrifying) perspective.
If you're a leftist but not as leftist as them, you're a centrist, maybe even center-right which makes everybody on the right to be automatically far-right."
You can be right of the Democratic Party and be anywhere from merely slightly-less-center center-right to, well, anywhere to the right of that.
But the US polítical spectrum is basically bimodal, and the peak to the right of the dominant faction of the Democratic Party is far-right.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/10/31/the-repu...
The GOP does not employ "populism" they employ scare tactics.
But the state remains a very conservative place overall, just like the rest of the USA. There’s a broad swath of the public who distrust the government, are opposed to taxes of any kind, and so on. Even in 2020, 34% of voters picked Trump, even though his rhetoric has included badmouthing CA as a cornerstone. And many CA Democrats are pretty conservative by the standards of most other developed countries, and would most naturally fit in a centrist or center-right party.
I figure Florida makes it up with their tourism industry but Texas decidedly does not have that.
Sales tax and property tax.
> What is the difference between their government and California's?
Houstonian* here — Texas doesn't provide nearly the level of social services.
* I saw a post recently where someone said "I'm from Houston, not from Texas."
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/san-francisco-school...
Your math is a little off, it was 1978.
On the east coast some of our states have high state income tax AND high property taxes (and property is very expensive) and I’m not sure the services or infrastructure are any better than in states like Texas. At least in California your property tax is locked in, which has its own problems of course.
At least where I live, a good deal of today’s tax revenues go to pensions to people that retired to Florida or Arizona (or some other tax free state) in their 50’s. I think Texas has avoided this trap many states are in today.
Lots of trade-offs.
P.S. Tourism's economic impact on my city in Texas was over 15b BC(before COVID).
- Personal income/wage tax
- Business income tax
- Capital gains taxes, Dividend taxes
- Sales tax
- Proper tax (homes, cars, etc.)
- Reducing services (e.g., worse schools, worse healthcare)
- Borrow (this can be a slippery slope)
- Create shadow liabilities that dont show up on the books (e.g., pension liabilities with poor growth assumptions)
Seems like they're still moving in instead of moving out, for now, though.
Is it driving home prices up?
Or is it robbing the state coffers of a tax revenue that has to be made up elsewhere?
I don't know.
People don't move because there's a tax hike proportionate to how long you've lived there, so there's less turnover in housing, meaning less supply, meaning higher prices.
It puts a hard, long term, effectively permanent cap on tax growth, so cities must plan for everything to continually get leaner. Cities make land use and zoning decisions based on uses that are net contributors to revenue, vs net costs. What is a net cost? Housing in general, especially housing that might contain school aged children - that's why 3+ bedroom apartments are so much more rare. What are net contributors? Offices and retail. So the places with demand get to pick, and SF and the Peninsula restrict housing as much as they can and have a huge concentration of offices.
Places on the outskirts (e.g. Dublin, Livermore, Gilbert, Brentwood) are allowing housing to be built because they're trying to turn nothing into something, but any established, and especially built-out city, has a strong financial incentive not to admit a single additional resident to live there, while encouraging everyone they can to shop and work there.
Those who would benefit from its repeal - renters, people who moved out, people who choose not to move to CA in the first place because of cost and governance, children, etc, either don't vote as consistently or can't vote in CA at all.
Proposition 15 (which would have eliminated commercial property tax breaks) failed 48%-52%. I think its biggest political flaw is probably the fact that it would apply July 1, 2022, with no phase-in for small businesses whose lease passes through the property tax. So hopefully in November 2022 another attempt can be made that addresses the political shortcomings.
Proposition 19 (which eliminated tax breaks for inherited investment property in exchange for increased tax portability for the elderly) only barely passed 51%-49%, and that was after it received overwhelming support from the legislature, and a $45 million advertising campaign from the California Association of Realtors that some people criticized for only highlighting the goodies for old people and not the costs for inheritors.
No one is attempting a full repeal of Proposition 13 including residential property.
It could also be attacked judicially; see this episode of the Henry George Program for a discussion of Nordlinger v Hahn and whether different legal arguments could be tried (e.g. does Proposition 13 impinge on the American freedom to migrate under the US Constitution?) http://seethecat.org/ep/2017-07-11.html
I believe it could be revisited on the grounds that Prop 13 primarily benefits white families (makes sense -- they were the only ones buying property 40 years ago).
There is now good data on the racial disparities in our current tax law and with enough money I think another lawsuit has a chance.
https://twitter.com/alfred_twu/status/1327821019931787264?s=...
Another problem is that many California counties subsidized suburban sprawl by not charging for utility hookups (like sewers). This put them in debt which caused them to encourage sprawl to balance the books, and some day someone will get left holding the bag, as is happening now.
California catered to the wealthy for decades and now they are having to pay the piper, so to speak.
This is what happens when you bend over backward for the super rich. I say good riddance, maybe California's taxation policies will recover to something more equitable without the 0.1%ers fucking it all up.... Like lowering income tax and repealing prop 13.
For single-family, owner-occupied housing, remove Prop 13 provisions for new sales, but grandfather in all current owners until their death or 20 years, whichever is sooner. After which their assessed values are gradually (say over 5 years) allowed to rise to the fair market value.
Force a reassessment upon the property being inherited, and remove Prop 13 protections from it. Right now, there's no reassessment if a child or grandchild inherits the property.
Eventually all grandfathered owners will die off, sell and leave, or start paying taxes based on the fair market value of their property.
Build X amount of new housing or have your property tax go up 10% per year until at market rate.
Would never pass, but I think it would be interesting.
It probably means prices are a bit higher than they could be, and people have stayed in their current property longer than they might've, but as a dominant factor? It's a lazy explanation since expensive city property is a problem elsewhere in the US and internationally too.
That continued price growth also tells you that "exodus" is a misleading oversimplification, since it means people are still buying. It wouldn't be too expensive for the people leaving if there weren't richer people buying!
(Even in a prop-13-less CA, the additional people selling their current properties to buy new CA properties instead would be adding to both the buyer pool and seller pool, it's not like there'd be an increase in inventory without an increase in buyers. So price effects seem potentially weak?)
He's not a perfect person by any stretch but he's been a net benefit and gain for CA, the US, and maybe the world?
The guy constantly gets called out for his twitter shitposting and people think he's some evil overlord... these same folks don't seem to care at all when their elected reps sell them out w.r.t housing, development, healthcare.
I also remember reading stories years ago about CA/SV businesses that had offices up in Colorado as a back-up for when 'The Big One' hits.
And toll roads, etc...
In short, the money has to come from somewhere — if not from income tax then it will be from somewhere else.
https://www.redfin.com/TX/Houston/9730-Arched-Oak-Dr-77095/h...
The rate may be higher, but the total paid will probably be less.
CA/0.74%/$2839
TX/1.8%/$2275
> But its pretty diverse, and it seems that folks with opposing viewpoints can still coexist here. I like that...
You hear this a lot lately from tech bros. It's hilarious considering how many things are illegal in Texas. Ya you can buy an assault rifle, but its illegal to buy hard liquor on Sunday. Have you ever looked at their gerrymandering? Did you know during the 2016 election they didn't allow mail in ballots?
Hispanics are set to become the largest racial demographic soon. ~13% of the population is black.
Houston is one of the, if not the depending on the report, racially diverse cities in the country. It's a bit self segregated geographically, but is pretty impressive and there is a lot of culture to be found. Large Asian community with substantial communities from countries that don't really exist elsewhere in the state.
The state is also more or less purple outside the voting booth. Major metro areas have higher concentrations of liberals. Etc etc.
Pretty much a microcosm of the USA.
Yes the like most urban areas they trend left and more ethnically diverse. Thus Texas is also trending left. I'm not sure what your point is.
Is your point that change is coming for Texas? I totally agree with that, but I think it's going to be a longer and harder fight than most think. From my experience a lot of the white population there are some of the worse bigots I've ever met.
My point was it's not a very free state, lol there are just certain specific things allowed. And it has low taxes so it's great if you're already rich and successful.
Every area has its unique challenges and benefits. For example, there are many jobs in California in a variety of areas including tech.
I think you're talking about Dallas/Houston/Austin vs everything else. I actually wouldn't necessarily call that diverse, it's in fact polarizing, but that's okay.
At the end of the day, no one in Texas really cares because the economy is strong and people's assets are going up. Until that stops (and it will eventually, like California) then thats where the divisiveness is going to be a problem.
Unless you are referring to specifically the covid moves, which are high cost of living minus geography mattering. It's anyone's guess whether it'll continue or reverse or what after covid.
I don't see many "opposing viewpoints" in Palo Alto either.
This is completely unhinged (and bigoted) fantasy. I have lived in multiple places around the US and liked many of them. California works pretty well, actually. It is not remotely like the USSR circa 1985.
It does overtax and underdeliver. But the federal government does that on a much grander scale.
The Bay Area and LA are overcrowded. There are other places to live in California! Some with much more natural beauty.
That's the sort of insightful, tolerant viewpoint that helps elevate discussions.
Stopped reading at "urban hellscape like NYC"
No. There's a trend of rich people commissioning articles about them leaving california. Articles which provide literally zero evidence of a trend.
The media likes to build up hype brands and then do exposes to deflate them. It's different parts of the media doing different hyping/deflating.
Also, more people move to California than any other state.
California is just huge
So it's not just Elon. It's those who have the opportunity to do so where it does not impact their lifestyle significantly.
Indeed and people leaving LA or SF because of the homelessness problem are going to have a serious wakeup call when they get to Austin. It's certainly not as bad as it is in CA but there are tent cities under countless overpasses and downtown has a large amount of homeless.
Lol. A couple weeks ago, there was footage of a bunch of Trump supporters in trucks boxing in a Biden campaign box on I-35 and trying to run it off the road.
This isn't a state where people with differing political opinions can coexist harmoniously.
The fact is Musk extracted all his value from California then “fled” to Texas.
He’s a parasite.
Interesting point.
It reminded me that in his past he has also left South Africa, and yet South Africa could also be described pretty accurately as "its not perfect. But its pretty diverse, and it seems that folks with opposing viewpoints can still coexist here."
Now I'm fairly certain based on his interviews that the reason he "left South Africa" was more to do with him wanting to move to the US since it increased the odds of success of his entrepreneurial dreams.
So I suspect his move to Texas might be along similar lines?
> I suspect something must be going on for several high profile folks moving out.
Interesting question you raise there.
If that were indeed true, what would you guess might be the cause?
I'd guess it might have to do with freedom of some kind.
Crime is South Africa's biggest pusher-outer-of-citizens.
But those that have been to Cape Town and its surrounds understand why so many still choose to live there.
It's a tough compromise!
If it wasn't for the lack of a high trust society, I would actually look into moving to Cape Town myself.
You have massive slums of people with no hope or future less than a 100 miles/kms away from the billion dollar French Riviera esque lifestyles of Camps Bay.
And with so many refugees coming in from the rest of Africa it almost seems like an unsolvable problem.
I've never been there.
All I come in contact with, living in middle income suburbs, is panhandlers at intersections.
Not sure what you mean by "panhandlers" - please clarify?
Here in Houston there are $500 per month apartments and $25,000,000 estates within the same city limits, yeah. There are some homeless folks, but not like Sacramento or San Francisco. Some people who work make less than $8 per hour right now. Other people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in just insurance premiums.
I fail to see the devastating difference in Texas when cities in California are adding to their own homeless populations by refusing to allow more housing to be built. Austin is a little more strict than here, but in Houston there are practically no zoning laws.