That has been the fantasy of many for at least as long as I've been able to read a newspaper, which is going on 50 years. And it never really seems to happen. Sure, there's a year or two of net migration out of the state, a few companies actually do leave, U-Haul reports that there are no rental trucks in the state of CA, they're all in $ANOTHER_STATE.
Then a few years later, house prices keep going up and net population rises. Maybe that big CA housing crash might actually happen this time, I dunno. I'm not counting on it, though. (Or for that matter, I'm not even caring, as we rejected moving to CA many years ago, and taxes are certainly a factor in that decision.)
USSR has learned this lesson 100 years ago and paid dearly for it. I wish people could learn from the past mistakes rather than repeating them on their own...
Breathlessly comparing the USSR's economic policies with the raising of taxes to cover such a fundamental service betrays a staggering ignorance of economics and history.
Russian culture is very similar, so when USSR implemented centralized planning, people resorted to just stealing what they could. Like literally, your way to get some meat for the lunch would be to know the guy that works on a sausage factory, who would steal a piece for you in exchange for some vodka your cousin stole from the distillery. This eroded the trust between people to the point where you cannot start most types of business because your employees will randomly steal shit from you no matter how much you pay them. Hence, high petty crime. Hence, endless feuds between neighbors. You have no idea how low the ship can sink without people realizing that something is wrong.
What always worked in the entrepreneurial cultures like the American one is set proper incentives. Simple, transparent rules that people would agree upon, and let them compete with each other. If you have 10 dental practices, and 2 of them charge you for the holes you don't have, the customers will move to the remaining 8. If a hospital starts charging unreasonable fees to feed extra levels of bureaucracy, a bunch of pissed off MDs will open a competing one. But we are not doing that. We have low interest rates that allow established players to scoop up competition with cheap debt. We have complex bureaucratic systems that make opening a new hospital without a 8-figure investment virtually impossible, and then we wonder why people's entrepreneurial energy gets directed towards creative billing rather than actually delivering value.
Looking at California's continuously rising GDP, it is hard to believe that value producers are leaving to be replaced with leaches. More likely, conservatives have been leaving the state, but since they live in more rural areas anyways (i.e. the red parts of the state), it hasn't dented the state's GDP much.
> It will work just great until suddenly there's not that many value left to feed all the hungry mouths. And then the mouths will take pitchforks and go raid the nearby granary because that's where they think the food is.
Ah, is your statement more about immigration from Mexico to support California's huge agriculture industry? If that is the case, then I agree: ever since Trump cracked down on illegal immigration and then with COVID, it has been really hard on Californian farmers.
Your analysis is complete bunk.
That's what it was reminding me of. (The USSR comparison should have given it away, but I can be slow that way.) Complete with the farmers going all "John Galt". Of course, what Rand forgot was that there's not going to be pitchforks at the granary. Like, what, folks are just going to let that land lie fallow? Like there isn't going to be some other steel company glad to have the competition out of the way? (re: Atlas Shrugged) Some folks like to fantasize that the world will miss them when they take their ball and go home. Some will later discover that the world is cruelly indifferent to them.
CA lost population in 2020.
Mathematically, the extent to which it happens and the duration don’t make much sense to me.
The idea is to stop paying health insurance to private insurance companies, and replace that with state taxes that pay for all health care instead.
Depending on your income level, the most likely outcome is that you'd see very little change in your overall compensation, plus your health insurance would no longer be tied to your job.
If the latter goes to zero and the former goes up, that's not actually doubling my deductions, despite the hyperbolic headline.