The Problem with California

I moved to California with my mother in 1951 when I was 4 years old. I lived in Los Angeles until I was 13 when my father decided that school on the East Coast  would be better for me. He was wrong, so at 16 I was back in California until I joined the Air Force in 1966. A little more than 4 years later I was back in California for 16 or 17 years before I moved to Las Vegas. I moved back one more time, before I finally left forever, thankfully.  

I give you that brief history so you know that my experience with California is a bit more than someone just passing through California used to be beautiful, inviting, prosperous, and well educated. As recently as a decade or so ago, many millions of people found it a desirable place to live, raise a family, or retire.

I don’t mean this to be all about politics, but sadly, politics has nearly ruined the great California lifestyle in recent years.

And the results are devastating. Hundreds of thousands of people are leaving California for largely the same reasons I left.  

My last residence was Westlake Village. It was a community just far enough away from the filth of Los Angeles and the liberalism of Santa Monica to make it a lovely place to live.

Sadly that started changing at a fast pace in the final years I lived there. Graffiti sprang up all over town (low-life gang members invading a community and trying to make it look like the rest of Southern California), crime made an ugly and increasingly intrusive entrance, and English became more rare. Then there were, and still are, the fires, floods, and earthquakes.  

Traffic ground everything to a halt despite the politicians’ promising their ever-increasing tax hikes on gasoline would go to new road construction. They never did. In fact skyrocketing gas taxes were only a harbinger of liberals’ growing appetite for new taxes — today, everything that moves is taxed, but then a lot of things don’t move are taxes as well — and tax increases are only getting worse.

You’ve probably already seen the headlines about some of the destructive policies being promoted in California. But I think it’s important to consider these things because what starts in California very often spreads to other states, and to our nation’s capital.

First, you may already know California has been issuing state driver's licenses to illegal aliens for years now. The update is that the governor and the legislature want to make it legal for anyone with a California driver's license to vote. Think about that; a person here illegally, NOT a citizen, can have just as much say as any citizen in what laws are passed and who is elected.

That means illegals living in California will vote for U.S. Senators and Congressman who have a huge impact on the lives of every American.

Not only is this unfair to citizens inside and out of California, it’s unconstitutional and illegal. President Trump, AG Jeff Sessions, you need to be all over this ASAP!

Another thing President Trump should be concerned about is the attack liberal politicians in California are making on his new tax plan. They don’t believe that businesses in California should receive the tax relief Congress passed and the president signed. Liberals in Sacramento intend to take 50% of the tax savings received by any business making more than $1 million. Too bad, Google, about that bonus to employees you wanted to give out. Oh well, Hewlett Packard, there goes that dividend to investors.    

The liberals justify their theft by saying they’ll use the money to help the poor. Never mind they helped drive so many people into poverty or near-poverty with all their looney economic policies. It doesn’t matter what they want the money for, it’s NOT their money. The only comfort I find is that if they pass this crazy law, even more businesses will flee California, taking millions of jobs with them, and voters there may finally wise up and vote these turkeys out of office. Hopefully, that will happen before it descends into a final socialist demise a la Venezuela.

California is a mess. It’s now a sanctuary state, graffiti is everywhere, tent cities have sprung up in Orange County, trash piles up alongside the highways, and potholes are more common on California freeways than on 2nd Ave in NYC at the end of winter. It’s hard to find people who speak English, the unions have destroyed the education system, agriculture which once was the number 1 industry is in decline, southern Californians are thirsting for water despite the potential for desalinization, and the California pension system is near bankruptcy.

If President Trump used the term sh-thole, I’m convinced he was talking about California.