DON’T ‘CALIFORNICATE’ THE REST OF AMERICA:

With taxes soaring, quality of life plunging as violent crime and homelessness surge, home prices out of reach, nonsensical government regulations spreading, an increasingly heavy-handed government and a slumping job market, California now ranks 47th out of 50 states on the widely followed Economic Freedom Index issued annually by Canada’s Fraser Institute.

As their future prospects dim, many longtime and even native Californians are leaving for better times in neighboring states such as Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Utah and New Mexico.

More recently, the departing have moved even farther away, relocating in Texas, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama. It’s a “reverse Beverly Hillbillies” migration.

From 2007 to 2016, some 7 million Californians (gross total) left the state, most of them middle-class or upper-class in income. In 2018 alone, the number of economic and quality-of-life refugees surged by nearly 700,000, and the flood appears to be continuing today.

GOP governors better get cracking on Glenn’s Welcome Wagon kits ASAP, if they want to keep their states in the red column. Otherwise, as a — [cough] — longtime resident of Texas, I’m all in favor of this proposal by America’s Newspaper of Record: Texas Passes Law Banning Californians From Voting After They Move There.