Study: California worst-run state

Dec. 1, 2012

By John Seiler

247 Wall Street once again ranked California as the worst-run state in the (increasingly Soviet) Union. That’s depressingly bad, considering we’re even worse than Illinois, New York, New Jersey and other high-tax, high-regulation, anti-jobs, anti-human states. The verdict:

“California is 24/7 Wall St.’s “Worst Run State” for the second year in a row. Due to high levels of debt, the state’s S&P credit rating is the worst of all states, while its Moody’s credit rating is the second-worst. Much of California’s fiscal woes involve the economic downturn. Home prices plunged by 33.6% between 2006 and 2011, worse than all states except for three. The state’s foreclosure rate and unemployment rate were the third- and second-highest in the country, respectively. But efforts to get finances on track are moving forward. State voters passed a ballot initiative to raise sales taxes as well as income taxes for people who make at least $250,000 a year. While median income is the 10th-highest in the country, the state also has one of the highest tax burdens on income. According to the Tax Foundation, the state also has the third-worst business tax climate in the country.”

Actually, of course, the tax increases to “get finances on track” will make the finances even worse, as the analysis hints when it also writes that California has “the third-worst business tax climate in the country.”

But however you look at it, the cumulative effect of decades of assaults on businesses and citizens is that jobs and workers and businesses are fleeing the state for more sensible locales.