17 thoughts on “Calexit”

  2. I know a guy who moved from California to Washington State. His problem was rather typical. He had a high salary, sure, but houses in California are freakishly expensive so he had more disposable income on Washington State and he ended up moving with his family there.

    California really needs to allow more dense housing units to be built so house prices go down or more people will keep moving out. Between that and all the people living in trailers over there you would think they would noticed this was a problem that needs fixing by now. But the thing is, the people who live there don’t want their houses to devalue by being on such high-rise areas. So they keep sabotaging any initiative to fix the problem.

  3. What I don’t get is, much like the guy said, since you seem to think California is so useless then why not let them secede? Because they aren’t useless. You just can’t admit it though.

    I think there’s a definitive possibility a lot of people there support a movement like this. I’ve known a couple of Californians and a lot of them think of themselves as in a separate state from the rest of the US regardless of political affiliation.

    1. As a resident, I’d leave in a minute if they became a separate country. Without the Bill of Rights, it would become a totalitarian state overnight. They’d probably even put up a wall.

    2. Sheesh. Of course they’re not useless. They are rich in natural resources. They have top notch universities. Their farmland is some of the best in the world. But they are Detroit, circa 1968. It’s not the state, it’s the politics. They were conservative until the early 1990s. That is why the state was so successful. But their political system has been hijacked by the left. You should know this if you’ve been reading Rand’s posts.

      There are several parts of California. The elites live along the coasts. The lower classes live “East of Eden.” It is run like a fiefdom. Read Victor Davis Hanson. He works in Palo Alto and lives in the San Joaquin Valley. He describes the disparities.

      Baker v Carr and Reynolds v Simms destroyed the natural check that the rural counties had on the major urban centers. State senates had a fixed number of representatives, just like the states do under the Constitution. But the progressive Warren Court sought to destroy this check so that cities would dominate the state legislatures. Now these rural areas have no way to address the injustices.

      If California secedes, you will also see further fragmentation, such as the state of Jefferson (which could also include southern Oregon.) Rand talked about this before: http://www.transterrestrial.com/?p=57185

      Public unions vote in droves and elect representatives that will pay the unions back with money. This is why CALPERS is not bankrupt, even though it should be. This is why teachers retire with six figure incomes. Trains are built to placate the unions, not to go anywhere. Meanwhile the roads in the interior are falling apart.

      So, yeah, California could go its own way, but it won’t survive. It will either fragment or stagnate.

          1. If the leftoid coast wants to leave, good riddance. The less densely populated inland parts of California would do so much better without the urban coast.

    3. You just can’t admit it though.

      A basic strawman argument. CA has great value, not the least being its military value in helping to protect the rest of the country. The left only exists because they’ve managed to insulate themselves from reality with other people’s money.

      We don’t need a west coast Venezuela.

    4. If California wants any more water from the Colorado River, they’ll have to negotiate with Rex Tillerson.

  4. I fled California with my family in 2008, and have never been happier about the decision. I live in Virginia, an open-carry state, which has a fairly high tax rate of 5.75% – but flat, and starting at $17,000. It’s much lower than Maryland, and much much lower than California’s. In fact, it’s much much lower than California’s SALES tax rate.

    My wife and I make the same amount of money, just under the top of the “middle class” each. We live on a five acre spread of wooded land on the banks of the Occoquan River in a 3,500 square foot house. My housing expenses, property tax, and utilities are exactly the same – without any inflation compensation – as they were in 1985 California, when we lived on a 0.25 acre, 1,300 square foot house. Nothing could ever induce me to move back to California. Nothing.

  5. “If California wants any more water from the Colorado River, they’ll have to negotiate with Rex Tillerson.”

    A starting point: A nickle per gallon. CA takes 4,400,000 acre feet per year from the CO River, which is 1.43 trillion gallons. A nickle a gallon would mean $72 billion per year going into the US Treasury every year, which is probably a fair deal for both sides.

    Then, we need to talk about defense. Specifically, DPRK nukes. How much would it be worth to CA for the 49 states to provide ballistic nuclear missile defense? I’m not advocating that the 49 states make a profit but we would need to cover our fully burdened costs. Or perhaps CA can develop their own, home grown defense. It wouldn’t be fair, however, for CA to paint big red X’s on LA and SF by having no missile defenses because the fallout would naturally move east, contaminating the 49 states.

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