Tuesday, February 28, 2006

WSJ is preaching to the choir here in California

I don't get why people here keep complaining about taxes and keep voting for Democrats for state legislature. Don't like taxes? Stop. Voting. Democrat.

It's really that simple.

The latest Census Bureau data indicate that, in 2005, 239,416 more native-born Americans left the state than moved in. California is also on pace to lose domestic population (not counting immigrants) this year. The outmigration is such that the cost to rent a U-Haul trailer to move from Los Angeles to Boise, Idaho, is $2,090--or some eight times more than the cost of moving in the opposite direction.


A mass exodus. Yeah it's that bad.

What's gone wrong? A big part of the story is a tax and regulatory culture that treats the most productive businesses and workers as if they were ATMs. The cost to businesses of complying with California's rules, regulations and paperwork is more than twice as high as in other Western states.

But the worst growth killer may well be California's tax system. The business tax rate of 8.8% is the highest in the West, and its steeply "progressive" personal income tax has an effective top marginal rate of 10.3%, or second highest in the nation. CalTax, the state's taxpayer advocacy group, reports that the richest 10% of earners pay almost 75% of the entire income-tax revenue in the state, and most of these are small0business owners, i.e., the people who create jobs.


That's why we kicked Davis out of office and put in Arnold. Sure he's not a conservative Republican, but half a sandwich is better then no sandwich when you're getting the crap taxed out of you. So keep that in mind California...

Keep California beautiful... vote Republican.