What happened to California?

California has loomed in the American psyche as the place for dreamers.

California has been a promised land where anything is possible with a little elbow grease.

“Why don’t you go on west to California?” asks John Steinbeck’s narrator in “The Grapes of Wrath.”    

“There’s work there, and it never gets cold. Why, you can reach out anywhere and pick an orange. Why, there’s always some kind of crop to work in. Why don’t you go there?”

That was then.

A study published last week by the Manhattan Institute explains why, today, you shouldn’t go to California.

The state suffers from a migration crisis.

Millions of people are fleeing the Golden State, traveling east in search of paradise.
In total, California lost about 3.4 million residents to other states since 1990.

This large exodus of citizens means that four-fifths of what it gained in the massive population increase from the previous 30 years — during which time “California took in enough American migrants to populate the entire state of Missouri” — is gone.

These migrants are mostly going to southern and western states.

Texas, Nevada and Arizona are the top three destinations.

Due to the large number of people leaving the state, California has lost billions of dollars in revenue to these states: $5.67 billion to Nevada, $4.96 to Arizona and $4.07 to Texas.

The destination states share certain things in common.

They each have more jobs.

This is especially true of Texas, where the unemployment rate was 8.1 percent compared to California’s 12.4 percent in July 2010.

They each have a lower tax burden.

Nevada’s tax burden as share of income from 2000-09 was 7.37 percent, and California’s was 10.46 percent.

In each of these states, it is easier and cheaper to conduct business.

Most of these states have right to work laws.

Californians are flocking to red states.

Traditional values like hard work and free enterprise made California the great place it once was.

The liberal impulse to regulate and tax is destroying it.

This is the modus operandi of liberals: inculcate, exploit, steal, regulate.

They convince voters that they are entitled to government services.    

Then, they take advantage of the altruistic spirit typical of Americans.

They know you want to help your neighbor, and they persuade you that your vote accomplishes this.

Next, they steal your money to pay for their promises.

They regulate everything since they are the ones running the show.

When the reckoning hour comes and they realize they’ve promised too much, liberals raise taxes more, invent new regulations and create bigger deficits.

It’s a vicious cycle that ends in default, bankruptcy and insecurity.

The Joads left behind the Dust Bowl for California’s sunshine in search of land, opportunity and jobs.

They had hope and dignity.

Steinbeck got it right: “Muscles aching to work, minds aching to create — this is man.”

California is discovering just how dangerous it is to stifle a person’s dynamic spirit.

After all, there are millions of oranges waiting to be picked along the gulf coast.

­— arcarlis@indiana.edu