The clearest possible illustration.
Why is it that nominally well-educated people can’t look at a set of observable facts and come to a logical conclusion? Observable facts are all around us. Yet logical conclusions remain elusive.
A clear example of observable facts can be seen in the influx of Californians moving to Texas. By the thousands lifelong citizens of the Golden State are coming to the Lone Star State. If you doubt me, drive around Dallas, and look at the volume of high-rise residential construction – both condos and apartments.
People from California aren’t coming to Texas for the pleasant summertime weather. They’re coming because of the massive dysfunction of California brought about by decades of leftist policy.
I’m bringing up California because the governor’s race in that state is in the news. Because of the unusual way that California conducts its primary elections – and I won’t spend the time to explain it here – a Republican has a plausible shot at becoming the next governor, replacing far-left pretty boy Gavin Newsom. (Newsom, for his part, wants to be the Democrats’ nominee for president in 2028.)
California, once the most beautiful, most prosperous, and most envied state in the Union, is a hot mess. Taxes in California are among the highest in the nation, yet the state’s roads are crumbling, its schools are failing, its big cities are degenerating, the state is essentially insolvent, the middle class is heading for the exits and an astonishing number of those left behind are living on the streets.
Astonishing indeed. California is the homeless capital of the nation. Nearly a quarter of all the homeless people in the entire country live there. Compare to Texas, the next most populous state, where fewer than four percent of the nation’s homeless live.
And as much as Democrats will try to make it so, none of this is Donald Trump’s fault. Trump has held one elective office two times for a combined total of just over five years. The last time that Republicans had a majority in the California legislature was 1970. The last Republican governor was Arnold Schwarzenegger, who left office in 2011 (and barely counts as a Republican anyway).
Decades of Democrat policies have brought once great California to the brink and yet no Democrat and no one in the leftist dominated media ever connects the dots.
When Lyndon Johnson began promoting his liberal Great Society programs in the mid 1960s, the debate was largely abstract. Big-government welfare at such scale had never been tried before.
But 60 years later we have hard data. The Great Society was a failure. The poverty rate of 2026 is little changed from the poverty rate of 1966. Yet poverty today is, perversely, even more deeply entrenched than it was when the Great Society launched.
Six decades of experience now shows that liberal, big-government programs not only don’t solve problems, they most often make the problems they set out to solve worse.
California – once the wealthiest, most envied state in the Union – is the clearest possible illustration.
Having lived in the Bay area in the 70’s, I couldn’t agree with you more. When we lived there, every where you went was clean and the roads to get there were in good shape. In our opinion, the Pacific highway was the most beautiful drive we had ever taken, don’t know if I’d want to get on it today. Just pray that the majority of people moving here will remember what they left, why they left and what a great state we have and vote appropriately.
Hi Paul, staying very busy these days, and as a consequence have had very little time to comment on your columns. But read and enjoy every one.
Your “clearest possible illustration” is another gem of clarity, but everything you say in this column will in no way find traction within the progressive mind. To say that the Democrats Party has become the Party of Stupidity is to be redundant.
Sadly too few leaving California are able to connect the cause and effect of how they voted in California and what is transpiring there. They will vote the same way here in Texas and then be shocked at the results. Critical thinking and logic skills are missing in the schools and home. Don’t expect it to get better.
In 2024, thousands of Californians moved to Texas: roughly 99,000 a year in recent years. They like the lower cost of living, no state income tax, and job diversity and space. Welcome to our great state.
How do I get “all of the text in the comments” to print? For some, I only can get part of the text to print? Thank you.
Probably the easiest way is to highlight it, copy it, and paste it into a Word document.
If only we could move Disneyland (less the radical left elements) with its wonderful lodgings and services to Texas. Then we would have every reason never to leave this Good-blessed State.
Yes, people are leaving California. The problem is they are bringing the problems with them. Why do you think Austin has turned blue? Dallas? Houston? The people have left California but the disease they were leaving, they brought with them infecting us all! All this didn’t happen over night. I used to go to Dallas and Houston on business and both places scared me to death. This was in the 1980’s and 90’s. I saw this coming. My husband wanted to go to some kind of auction in Austin once. I had just bought a new truck. Went back to the truck to get something to drink when I saw someone KEYING my brand new truck!!! He out ran me and the police wouldn’t have been much help! Have never been back to Austin and never will! If you don’t FIX the problem where you are, you will take it where ever you go infecting instead of FIXING the problem!
Yes, people are moving to Texas from several states because you get taxed less, there is room to breathe, farm, grow a garden, raise a cow, pig, chicken or don’t want to live a few feet from the family next door, but you are killing Texas. I don’t care how hard you try, you will bring some of the ideas and habits that ruin your old city, county or state to Texas and stab her in the heart with those ideas and habits. I am sorry, but you need to go home and work hard and clean up your mess where you came from!