Even worse, businesses are leaving in droves.  It all boils down to high taxes and excessive regulation.  Yes, some leave California of other reasons, too.  But these are the big ones.

I won’t get into why others are getting out of Dodge, as it would be mostly speculation.  So I’ll tell my own story.

California is The Greatest Place on Earth

Everyone is aware of the classic California superiority complex, right?  Hey, I’m guilty!  In fact, I consider myself first Californian, THEN American.  As much as I have traveled, I have never seen a place with such amazing weather, so diverse, and… well, totally and like… y’know… fully cool, dude!  Yeah, I’m from the valley.  The sun is always shining, the plants are always green, the temperature is always fantastic, and nearly 70% the Ferraris that leave the factory in Italy are destined for California!  We have the actors, the music, amazing restaurants, vast beaches, and did I mention the sunshine?

In the winter, you can go skiing in the morning, and spend the afternoon surfing in 80 degree temps.  I grew up in a place where on those rare days that we would get as much as 1 or 2 inches of rain, we had “rain days”, during which we didn’t go to school because it was WET, and if we turned on the TV, we would see reporters standing in the rain describing how wet they were getting in the rain.  They would warn us of “Curbside Flooding”, and all of this with fancy ‘STORM WATCH’ graphics on the TV — My apologies to those of you reading this after shoveling snow.

I love California.

The Land of, Like, Opportunity, Y’Know

All four of my grandparents made the move west in the 40′s.

On my father’s side, they were Russian immigrants, who moved to Pennsylvania.  They were pre-depression mattress-stuffers than ran a shoe store in South Philly and didn’t believe in banks. When the depression hit, they were literally sleeping on their life savings, and began to buy up property at rock-bottom prices.  As we came out of the depression, they sold some and kept some, but were suddenly quite wealthy.  There was only one thing to do at the time for anyone on the rise:  They moved to Beverly — The Beverly Hillbillies tune is now in my head, although they were Beverly Moscovites.

On my mother’s side, my grandparents were second-generation Italians from Buffalo, New York.  They were a simple middle-class family.  My grandfather worked as a meat broker.  He was transferred to Chicago at one point, then had an opportunity to transfer to Los Angeles in the late 40′s.  He seized the opportunity.

Both sets of grandparents moved to California in part because of the weather, but mostly because it was a place of vast opportunity.  On my father’s side, they saw a growing city, ripe for real estate investment.  On my mother’s side, my grandfather chose to open his own meat brokerage in this up and coming place.  They all did quite well.

The California Dream

It was the new version of The American Dream.  The weather rocked, costs were lower, and it was a new frontier where a person could build a future.  What a place!

I Left Once, But it Didn’t Take

Fast forward to me now.  As I grew up, California was obviously well-established and L.A. was a massive city.  The cost of living was extremely high, but that was always offset by the fact that we made more money than everyone else, so it was no big deal.  But in 1994 I left.

When the 1994 Northridge Earthquake hit, our world was rocked.  We were very close to the epicenter, and around the same time we had a business opportunity in South Carolina.  My wife, who is an Italian immigrant, was really shaken up, and wanted to leave.  I more or less caved, but I left my home city in tears.

The business in South Carolina didn’t work out, and we ended up moving briefly to Virginia.  At the time, I had a side business that was growing, so I concentrated on building it, setting a financial goal that, when hit, we would move back to L.A.  Eleven months after leaving California, we were back.

I swore I would never leave again.

The California Dream Tax

That little side business I had enjoyed tremendous success, and continued to grow into a very well-known software company through the 90′s until we took a major hit in the dot.com bust in 2001.  It continued (and is still active), but we also ended up opening a tour company that operated in Italy that has since become extremely successful.  With these companies, it has been hard to ignore what we pay in taxes, and at one point I looked at how much of our tax was avoidable by moving the company.

It is the California Dream Tax in my opinion.  That is, what was I paying for the benefit of living in California?  If I were to move my family and businesses to a more tax-friendly state, what would I save?  The results are astounding.

Without accounting for deductions, here is a simple breakdown compared to Florida, the state I ended up choosing.

The corporate taxes, accounting for income, payroll, fees, etc. ended up being roughly 1/2 of California!  So in keeping this simple, if I was paying $100,000 in corporate taxes in California, $50,000 of that was so that my company could enjoy the California Dream.

Personal Income Taxes are a major issue.  California’s state income tax is 9.3% for anyone making a hair under $50,000.  Florida is ZERO.  So if I make $150,000.00, we are talking about nearly $14,000 in state personal income tax for the right to be in California.  The kicker is that my federal income taxes are not even deductible, so as a California, you must pay taxes on the tax money you pay.  Imagine taking $40 out of your wallet EVERY DAY and throwing it in your trash can while saying “Here is my donation to the California Sun”.

Property Taxes in Los Angeles are actually lower than here.  My area of Florida is roughly 1.5%, while Los Angeles was 1%.  However, Real Estate prices in Los Angeles are easily 300% higher, so for the same house, I would actually pay 1/2 what we were paying in L.A.

Sales Tax:  L.A. Sales tax is now approaching the magic 10% mark.  To be exact, it is 9.75%.  Out here, it is a whopping 6%.  A difference of 3.75% is pretty significant.  If I spend $75,000 a year on taxable items, I would pay almost an extra $3,000 for the right to purchase them in L.A.

Other taxes and fees:  The other little things really add up.  Fr example, the registration fees for my car in California would be $700.00 per year.  The same car is $45 in Florida.  Gasoline taxes are higher, payroll taxes are higher, etc.

In addition, we noticed that the purchase of regular every day items was a solid 30% less in Florida than California.

When it was all said and done, we figured that toughly 40% of our gross income was paying for the California Dream.

So we left.

Arnold, Can I Come Home Yet?

I miss it terribly.  Don’t you miss us, Arnold?  After all, by leaving, we reduced your tax base.  By subjecting me to a 9.3% income tax rate, now you get ZERO from me.  By trying to charge me 1,600% more for my vehicle registration, now you get NADA.  By raising the sales tax again, and again, and again…. Now I pay a 0% sales tax in California.  Worse yet, I took with me all the money I contributed to the California Economy, the jobs I created in the state, all of the taxes and economic stimulus those employees created, and so much more.

How many more are like me?  How many businesses have jumped ship?  How many people have joined the exodus?  Are the higher taxes compensating for all the lost revenue from all the lost taxpayers?

Seriously…  because I would like to come home, but can’t reason it the way things are.  Something must change, and I seriously doubt I am alone here.

The Irony of Who Is Leaving

It is almost laughable when you think about it.  California is a very liberal state.  Very liberal politicians like to talk about the poor, shrinking middle class.  But think about who is getting out of California.  If you are too poor, most simply cannot afford to leave.  They are locked in their reality.  The very rich aren’t too affected by the difference in tax rates.  That leaves everyone in the middle, like me.  In fact, every individual I know that has left is middle class or upper-middle.  Yes, many large businesses are leaving, because the millions saved cannot be ignored by them.  But smaller businesses, like mine… you know, the backbone of the economy…  We just cannot afford to stay.  So if we are in a business that CAN leave, we DO.  That is, if I ran an auto parts shop that was dependent on location, I would be locked in.  But that was not the case, so I left for greener (and rainier) pastures.

Doesn’t that sound like a recipe for a shrinking middle class?

Rush Limbaugh

He’s good for a laugh, but Rush… Take a pill (sorry for that).  If you would breathe for a second, and stop telling us how right you are, I might want to listen to you.  I find myself sifting through all of the crud to hear something worth noting.  I generally agree with many of your points, but you spew so much bull in between that it almost makes everything you say suspect.

Sean Hannity

Sean, turn down the flag graphics and ‘This is the greatest country on earth’ rhetoric.  If Obama has eggs one day for breakfast, you will jump all over him for it.  In my view, it waters your opinion down and you come across as nothing more than a whiner.  Again, I agree with much of what you believe, but even Obama gets some things right.  If you are not willing to give him those, you just come across as a hate monger.

Glenn Beck

Glenn, I like you.  Even the crying doesn’t bug me.  But for what it is worth, you really depress me.  Still, you make quite a bit of sense, and I would argue that you and I are close in the political spectrum.  I like that you mobilize people and connect the dots.  Love the chalkboard.  But I am sorry to say that your shows always come across as end of the world scenarios, and I think that could be toned down.

Bill O’Reilly

I find myself disagreeing with Bill more than I do with Beck.  But I also respect that he really does try to be fair.  I watched Bill give Obama a report card on a morning news show, and he gave him everything from a D to a B.  Hannity would have said STRAIGHT F’s ACROSS THE BOARD.  To be honest, I wouldn’t have given Obama anything better than a D, so I respect that O’Reilly was more generous than I.

Until then, I had never thought about whether or not I was a racist.  I had never considered skin color as a factor of anything at all.  I grew up with friends that were White, Black, Latino & Asian…   and I’m not saying that I had some sort of respect for people of a different race.  I didn’t, because it wasn’t even a factor.  I didn’t think of there being anything different to respect or not respect.  To propose it to me would have been no different than asking if I took issue with people that have blonde hair. The question in and of itself is puzzling.

I’m not trying to say that I had no knowledge of racism.  Of course I did.  We studied it to no end in school, talked about it in class, but I never had any connection to it.  To me it was something of a different place and time. 

However, that day in high school something changed.    The kid that had called me a racist for no other reason than the fact that I was white suddenly became different.  He judged me based on my color, and nothing else.  I was suddenly forced to see him as different from me.  I suddenly had to treat him differently than others, causing me to create a category for him in my mind. In other words, with respect to him, I was now a racist.

Later in life, I had been talking with my childhood best friend.  He had developed a huge issue with race.  He was Asian, and said that he often encountered race-related obstacles.  Some of his stories had me feeling for him, and some had me thinking he had a chip on his shoulder and would take any unexplained situation and make into a race issue.  The thing is, that I had never thought of him by his race…. Until then. 

The more he talked about the fact that he was different, the more he became different. He was incredibly sensitive to anything that he might consider racist, to the point that I found myself walking on eggshells to make sure I didn’t offend a person that I considered like a brother.

Doesn’t this create more racism?  If you want me to see you as different and treat you differently than I would treat the person next to you, aren’t you insisting on a racist bias?

So I notice it more and more over the years, especially when people talk about the ‘Race Card’.  Seriously, what did race have to do with OJ?  Do we really believe that if Rodney King had been white, the cops would have offered him milk & cookies?

Now it is getting more and more intense with Obama in the White House.  An overwhelming majority of Americans voted for Obama.  But every time someone has a problem with his policy, people start yelling that they are only complaining because he is black.  Really?

In the history of this country, democrats and republicans have never seen eye to eye.  One has always disparaged people from the opposing party.  They do it because they disagree on the issues.  Why is it that now someone that disagrees with Obama’s issues is accused of only disagreeing because of his color? 

Every time I see this happen, I see people trying to change the rules of politics because of race, which I believe can only lead to frustration and a greater problem with racism.

We are creating Frankenstein’s monster here.

I’ve been watching this debate for months now, and I honestly cannot believe my eyes and ears.  I won’t sit here and tell you that we don’t have major problems in the delivery of our health care, but as we learned by electing Obama, ‘CHANGE’ is just change… not necessarily ‘GOOD CHANGE’.  Where do you think we got the term ‘from the frying pan into the fire’, anyway?

I spend a great deal of time in one of the glorious ‘socialized medicine’ countries: Italy.  So let’s look at it for a second:

Free healthcare for all

Right?  WRONG.  Look at your paycheck.  See all those little taxes that get deducted?  Unemployment, Federal withholding, FICA, etc. etc. Italy has a gigantic one for Medical care…  and it is higher than what I pay here in the states.  Of course, if you are unemployed you don’t have that tax taken out, and you still get healthcare.  But here in the states you can walk into any emergency room and get treatment even if you cannot afford it, and the quality of THAT treatment is far superior to what the healthcare in Italy offers.

Quality Healthcare for All

Really?  Are we honestly drinking that Kool Aid?  A friend of ours in Italy needs an MRI, and she needs it STAT!  Since it is urgent, she will only have to wait a few months!  She ended up having to go to a private clinic where she paid thousands.  Yet she still must pay that tax.

Another friend has a 10 year old child with a serious heart condition.  He needed an operation urgently enough hat he was instructed not to play until he got it.  He was put on the waiting list, and finally went under the knife after six months. 

I watch friends go to doctors for routine appointments, and when they do so they need to block off the entire day.  Why?  Because a 9:00 AM appointment means ‘sometime today after 9AM’.  My wife was once in a waiting room awaiting her appointment, and after hours, she watched the doctor walk out to lunch with a waiting room full of people that had been there all morning.

I have yet to see a hospital that looks even remotely sanitary. 

A semi-private hospital room means there are only 6 beds in the room.  Private rooms?  HA!

A job in the system is a job for life.  The net effect is that there is no accountability for much of anything – it’s quite a bit like the DMV.  So if you want care, you must always have a family member by your side to make sure you are always getting it.  And tipping nurses for care is quite common as a consequence.

The funny thing is that when it is really, really serious, many that have access come to the states for healthcare.  Why is that?

But the drugs are cheap

Yes, they are.  I do believe that we need to find a solution to the costs of meds.  Does that mean we need to emulate a world full of broken systems?

But That’s Just Italy

Yes, it is.  It is one example of socialized medicine.  It is where the bulk of my experience comes from.  But I have heard similar first-hand horror stories from all over the world. Go ahead and research the state of the system in the UK, for example.  How about France?

We’ll be more like Sweden and Canada

Will we?  Let’s assume their systems are fantastic  (They aren’t)

Sweden has about the same population as the State of  North Carolina.  That makes the USA roughly 3,300%  more populous than Sweden.

Canada’s population is less than the State of California by itself, making the population of the USA more than 900% larger than that of Canada.
Additionally, every state in the union has its own laws, its own problems, its own culture.  Do we really believe a federal government will come up with a wonderful plan that will be efficient, take care of everyone, and make us feel like we are getting better care?

So what’s the answer?

I don’t know.  I don’t claim to be someone with the answer, just someone that doesn’t like what is being shoved down his throat.  In other words, I don’t have to know how to make a great sandwich in order to know that a dog feces & moldy cheese sandwich will taste bad, do I?

I do know that a government-run healthcare system will most likely look like other government-run systems, and nothing about that sounds like quality to me.