One of the best indicators of a state’s economic health, according to John Merline, writing in Investor’s Business Daily, is the “U-Haul Index” (first publicized by economist Mark Perry) to see what people are paying to move into, or out of, the state. Renting a 20-foot truck one way from San Francisco to San Antonio, Texas, for example, costs $1,693. Going in the other direction, however, costs only $983 for the same truck.
As Perry explains:
The American people and businesses are voting with their feet and their one-way truck rentals to escape California and its forced unionism, high taxes, and high unemployment rate for a better life in low-tax, business-friendly, right-to-work states like Texas.
They have lots of reasons to leave. According to the Tax Foundation, “Tax Freedom Day” arrives earlier in Texas than it does in California, due to its zero individual and corporate income tax and a lower sales tax. Put together, Texas’ state and local tax burden is less than eight percent of income, well below the national average of nearly 10 percent, while California’s is almost 12 percent.
This enormous disparity puts California the 48th out of the 50 states in the foundation’s overall business tax climate index, while Texas ranks ninth.
It isn’t all about taxes, however. Its regulatory environment and yawning fiscal deficits are chasing companies away to more favorable locales. Part is the state’s determined efforts to increase still further its tax burden on high income earners — now an astounding 13 percent — along with its implementation of policies favored by the Obama administration in Washington. As Joel Kotkin of NewGeography.com put it,
California will serve as the prime testing ground for President Obama’s form of post-economic liberalism. Every dream program that the Administration embraces — cap and trade, massive taxes on the rich, high-speed rail — is either in place or on the drawing boards.
Read More at thenewamerican.com . By Bob Adelmann.
Photo Credit: Phlairline.com (Creative Commons)
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The California I was born and raised in is now totally unrecognizable to me. Born in 1932 in Los Angeles, I grew up in the southern California area, went to school there and even worked for the City for 5 years before moving out. What politicians have doen to the state in conjunction of course with the Hollywood elitists has been nothing short of criminal. Gangs, drug wars, crooked politicians, wacked out environmentalists and a host of other self centered, egotistical morons have left that state virtually in a state of bankruptsy both monetarily and morally. It is therefore no wonder people are leaving in droves. I now live in Arizona fairly near I-10. At any time of the day or night you can see numerous trucks, from rentals to pickups with a trailer on behind, most loaded way too heavy headed east.
Good luck Texas with your new residents. Pray that they leave their wacked out politics in California.
The CA people thought they knew what they were doing letting the hollywood crappers and illegals and dems run there state and they have bled our country dry. You reelected crappers that stole your money and like pelosi you let do this and ruin our country too and continues to . I hope they are wrong and just continue to head on further into the Gulf as they are druggies and gangs but seeing San Antonio and that crapper mayor that they are proclaiming as a saint and he is worthless but the libbers keep pretending and they have no experience and they just want to win not to fix any thing and they will insult and use their lack of any common sense to destroy the rest of us. TX needs to hurry up and get out of the USA muslim addicted country before it too late. I was a liberal before this but they don’t have a clue they have to have been brainwashed as no one could be this stupid.