California has been ruled by Democrats since the mid-1990s. There hasn’t been a Republican governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger’s term expired in January 2011. There hasn’t been a Republican mayor of San Francisco since 1964. So the Dems have been able to run the experiment. And the results of one-party rule are stunning.
State taxes on the well-off are amongst the highest in the US, and set to rise higher, driving the wealthy away to low-tax states such as Florida and Texas. At the same time, the state has made itself a magnet for illegal immigrants by establishing no fewer than 20 ‘sanctuary’ cities or counties that refuse to enforce immigration law.
And the results? California now has 12 per cent of the nation’s population, but over 30 per cent of its welfare recipients. According to a 2020 Census Bureau report, which took housing and other costs into account, the poverty rate in California is 17.2 per cent, the highest of any state.
There’s a chronic housing shortage, mainly because a plethora of regulations make the construction of affordable housing well-nigh impossible. The state’s public schools rank 34th in the country overall and have the highest pupil-teacher ratio. Oh, and there are recurrent wildfires because of chronic management of public woodlands, and periodic droughts because of insufficient investment in reservoirs.
When I first visited San Francisco in 1981, it was still one of the loveliest cities I had ever beheld. Now its streets are so filthy – human excrement and syringe needles are the principal hazards – that I avoid it. The leaders of Democraticy Inc. – the Donorcrats who raised the billion dollars squandered by the Harris campaign since July – thought they could seize control of the whole of America, red states and all, and so perform the same reverse alchemy, turning gold into lead from coast to coast.
Thank God, they were wrong. That is why their candidate Kamala Harris has joined the sad list of sitting vice-presidents who failed to win the presidency, along with Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale and Al Gore.
More news from the once golden state: California Air Regulators Vote on New Climate Program That Will Likely Increase Gas Prices Up to $1.50 Per Gallon After Election Where GOP Captured More Counties.