Hopefully you spent Father’s Day weekend celebrating a man you honor and cherish. I spent my weekend with my family, but more importantly with two young families that were leaving the state of California. They had enough and are moving on. Members of the middle class that believe they will never achieve their dreams in the state where everyone used to dream their dreams.
The first couple is moving to Henderson, Nevada. They are done scrambling for schools, scared of the quality or lack of quality in the LAUSD for children. I met the husband through politics close to twenty years ago and became his CPA and then his family’s CPA. Ironically, he later married the niece of one of my closest friends since my first days at Grant High in the Valley almost 50 years ago. They both have spent their entire lives in California but see no livable future here for them. They raved about their new home at a very reasonable price where their kids can go to a local school.
We spent time speaking of the craziness going on in California. They brought up climate change. We talked about the lack of water in California, which is not an issue in Henderson. They both have been to Israel many times and spoke of how that desert land is awash in water. I suggested that the logical thing to do if the “environmentalists” are so concerned about the oceans rising then they should be all in for desalination plants to soak up the water along the coast and move it inland where it is really needed and stem the water shortage. The husband –who does real estate loans — stated when the liberal elite want to sell him their houses along the beach in Malibu at 70 cents on the dollar because of their concerns about climate change then he will believe it. Until then he said they are just blowing smoke.
The second couple is moving to Austin, TX. The husband moved here 15 years ago after graduating college. We know his mother through Jewish community activities, and I had met his father through political activities. We were to look after their son in this foreign land as the family is from Houston. I recently told his father I liked his son more than I like him. That is how close he became to us.
Five years after being here he met a young lady at a wedding in Chicago. She came here and started working as a professional in the Jewish Community. We soon found out her two parents were in my eighth-grade class in Shaker Heights, OH. Strange twists of fate. The young couple married and became the parents of two young daughters.
They started looking around about impending schools, the homeless factor in their relatively high-end community of Sherman Oaks, the high cost of living and all the other craziness about California and said “Hasta la Vista.”
While dealing with the devastation of losing these two families that I love having moved away, I received an email from my uncle who is now living in Florida as a refugee from NY. He is one of those guys who says he will never be a Floridian and always be a New Yorker even though NY mirrors California in so many ways, driving their residents to greener pastures.
He asked why an (estranged) nephew is also leaving CA to move to Indiana. My response: “Probably because California is driving out many young couples because the government sucks here. Had final meal with two couples over the weekend — one moving to NV, one moving to TX. Not totally surprising. High taxes, bad schools, bad roads, highest poverty rate in nation, homeless abound. Surprised anyone stays.”
He objected to that. Then he asked, but why he is leaving. “I just told you. BTW, unaffordable housing here. Why don’t you live in NY? You are in favor of paying for health care for illegal aliens and now you can get in an auto accident with an illegal who has a driver’s license, but no insurance. As insane as CA.”
Then I replied once more “BTW, if you read anything other than the NY Times you would know Indiana has basically a zero-unemployment rate. They are enticing people to move there. They have a sane government, low taxes and affordable housing. That is why he is moving there.”
If you read Joel Kotkin, a demographer out of Chapman Univ., millennials are leaving California in bunches. The middle class is getting crushed. They have figured out they cannot make it here with two kids and a mortgage and bad schools and everything else. Their chances of moving from the middle class to upper middle class are frozen thus they are relocating to defrost their dreams.
Governor Newsom is not solely responsible for this, but he wanted the big job and now he has the big woes. He recently wasted his time deriding Republicans. He misses that they are not listening because they are leaving.
He apparently is smoking some of the newly legalized dope because recently Newsom stated this: ““Every year, the (business) executive magazines come out and say, ‘California is the worst place to do business, No. 50 in the nation. They say the best places are Tennessee and Texas …’ but if it’s all about (gross domestic product), we outperform everyone.” California “is still the envy of the world,”
Young families are leaving, businesses are relocating, the highly successful soon will leave due to high taxes no longer deductible. “California dreamin’ (California dreamin’)
On such a winter’s day.” Those days are gone.
But Gov, you are giving free healthcare to illegal aliens while our Vets live in the muck on the streets. I hope you are proud Governor. I am just sad.