For those not paying attention, California became a one-party state this past election. The Republican caucus of the state’s House and Senate has shriveled to such insignificance that the GOP can no longer oppose anything.
The State of California:
"the state’s unemployment is among the highest in the country, and is trending down very slowly"
"Large parts of the state, notably in the interior regions, suffer unemployment in the 15% range and high"
"Old-style liberals might point out that California’s progressive policies have not done much for the working- or middle-class folks often trumpeted as its beneficiaries. Instead income inequality has grown far more than the national average."
"the state, with 12% of the nation’s population, account for one third of its welfare cases."
"Domestic migration has been negative for 18 of the past 20 years; immigration from abroad is at the lowest point in the past two decades."
"In terms of growth in college-educated residents, only San Diego managed to add more than the national average from 2000 to 2010; both the Bay Area and Los Angeles were considerably below." (See “The U.S. Cities Getting Smarter The Fastest“)
"California, remarkable for its population growth over the past century, now is heading toward “zero population growth,” notes economist Bill Watkins; the state now barely grows 1% a year."
"Los Angeles, the state’s largest urban area, grew less, in total numbers, in the last decade than at any time in the last 100 years."
Add to this their crushing structural debt, and well… You get the picture. Progressives have turned America’s promised land into hell on earth. Today's Okies are heading in the opposite direction, with club-wielding state revenue thugs at the state line attempting to block their exit.
California is now a pure progressive experiment. The Petri dish has been sterilized of GOP taint. I can’t wait to see what happens.
* - All quotes are from Joel Kotkin’s article, The Crack Up of California. It’s worth a read.
