quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
In other words: driving the middle class out of the State is a feature, not a bug.
They don't want you there. They want a feudal system.

Yes, but they haven’t thought thinks through. Who’s going to pay for everything? When they chase out all the productive people the error in their thinking will become impossible to ignore.

quote:

Who’s going to pay for everything? When they chase out all the productive people the error in their thinking will become impossible to ignore.

They will attempt an "exit tax" for those who leave...

Zuckerberg Follows Billionaire Exodus To Florida As California Pushes New Wealth Tax

Once again, the pattern is familiar: raise taxes in California, and watch the private jets head east.

Mark Zuckerberg may soon be adding Miami to his ever-growing list of luxury addresses. According to people familiar with his plans, the Meta founder and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are exploring a home on Indian Creek Island—an ultra-exclusive, heavily guarded neighborhood often called “Billionaire Bunker”, according to Bloomberg.

The tiny island is already packed with famous residents, including Jeff Bezos, Tom Brady, Jared Kushner, and Ivanka Trump.

With an estimated fortune north of $200 billion, Zuckerberg already owns multiple properties across California, Hawaii, Washington, D.C., and near Lake Tahoe. It’s not clear whether Florida would replace any of those homes or just become another stop on his real estate tour.

https://www.zerohedge.com/mark...ushes-new-wealth-tax

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:


Zuckerberg Follows Billionaire Exodus To Florida As California Pushes New Wealth Tax

California is committing literal suicide right before our eyes:

https://x.com/chamath/status/2021085135769305418?s=20

quote:

Originally posted by SIG228:

quote:

Originally posted by Fly-Sig:
How will California determine how many miles a vehicle was driven in order to tax it by the mile?

State mandated black box that tracks and records mileage.

If I was hearing the discussion accurately, the resident will have their odometer read annually (akin to the every-other-year smog inspection we have to go through is a vehicle is more than six years old) prior to re-registering your vehicle.

How they account for out-of-state travel is not known yet.

Who performs / verifies the odometer reading (read: gets paid $30(?) to read and enter the mileage into the system) is also being worked out.

Then you have the people who live in rural areas and might need to travel 10 miles just to see a town or store.

Oh, and then there are the tourists who get a rental car - they will not be immune because, wait for it, there might be residence(s) who rent a car after weighing the mileage tax on a rental if it is not applied.

You think our high-speed rail system is a clusterfuck? "B-b-b-baby, you ain't seen nuthin' yet!"

quote:

California is committing literal suicide right before our eyes:

Doesn't bother me at all, but I do feel sorry for our members who live there.

quote:

Originally posted by LS1 GTO:

Who performs / verifies the odometer reading (read: gets paid $30(?) to read and enter the mileage into the system) is also being worked out.

Already being done here. In Clark County, NV (already a lot like commiefornia) The mileage is recorded as part of the annual smog cert.

quote:

Originally posted by vinnybass:

quote:

Originally posted by LS1 GTO:

Who performs / verifies the odometer reading (read: gets paid $30(?) to read and enter the mileage into the system) is also being worked out.

Already being done here. In Clark County, NV (already a lot like commiefornia) The mileage is recorded as part of the annual smog cert.

Well, regardless of pissed off at least one our members is here about it, wife and I are listing our home next week with the hopes an offer we just put in on a home in Tennessee will be accepted by COB tomorrow.

As an FYSA - when I in TN last week and returning my rental car, regular gas was $2.39 near the airport in Nashville. Regular gas here is $4.59

^^^ Good luck!

Yeah, making an offer on a new house before you even list the current one is ballsy to say the least. Good luck, I hope it all goes quickly and smoothly for you.

quote:

Originally posted by Expert308:
Yeah, making an offer on a new house before you even list the current one is ballsy to say the least. Good luck, I hope it all goes quickly and smoothly for you.

Thanks.

It is a contingent offer and without a kick-out clause.

I am third generation San Diego area native and my wife is fifth generation. Wife has never lived anywhere else and is concerned about living away from the Pacific.

I promised we could visit when the Padres are in town and playing at Petco

Plus: how bad can an area be when the local WalMart sells reloading stuff too?

quote:

Originally posted by LS1 GTO:
As an FYSA - when I in TN last week and returning my rental car, regular gas was $2.39 near the airport in Nashville. Regular gas here is $4.59

Get a little way out of Nashville and you can find it for less. I paid $2.24-9 about 50 miles from there on Sunday. I’m looking forward to heading back to Tennessee in a few more years.

quote:

Originally posted by LS1 GTO:
Wife has never lived anywhere else and is concerned about living away from the Pacific.

Good luck in your endeavor. I am originally from Bakersfield so I don't miss the ocean that much. We moved to Murfreesboro in the Fall of 1997 and haven't looked back. Tennessee has so much more to offer in a lifestyle kind of way. Plus no income tax! The only downside for our city has been excessive growth over the years. The city was never designed for it so traffic here can be stupid busy at times. Other than that, the move has been a major win for me and the family.

Well, our offer was accepted this morning

Going to update this thread: https://sigforum.com/eve/forum...870014715#5870014715

Do Democrats even recognize the Doom Loop?
Or just don't care?

The Blue States’ Doom Loop

Annually and increasingly, tens of thousands of people are leaving blue states because of politics.

J. Robert Smith | February 11, 2026

If you’re old enough, you’ll recall the 1961 Berlin crisis. I recall it subsequently, when schools taught real history. That crisis happened during the Cold War’s peak years. In brief, Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev wanted the U.S. out of West Berlin. There were multiple reasons, but, chiefly, access to West Berlin allowed East Germans to escape communist rule.

According to the National Archives, by 1961, as many as four million Germans had escaped East Germany using West Berlin. With tensions rising, and the hemorrhaging increasing, Khrushchev ordered the Soviets’ East German puppet government to string barbed wire and erect concrete barricades around West Berlin to stop the outflow. That was the beginning of the Berlin Wall, which stood as a testament to communism’s failure until 1989.

What does that have to do with America today? The point is that people vote with their feet when conditions become unacceptable. That’s no less true here. Since the nation’s inception -- in fact, long before the founding -- people came to the continent to escape troubles and moved west in search of better lives. East Germans fled primarily because of politics -- albeit, of a brutal, totalitarian stripe.

Annually and increasingly, tens of thousands of people are leaving blue states because of politics. High taxes and red tape, inflated costs, unchecked crime, failing schools, and unashamed race bias -- directed at whites -- are pushing people out. Soft political tyranny and cultural decay are drivers. Human nature is universal. People will endure until they cannot.

That’s bleak news for blue states. Regardless how many times Gavin Newsom shrugs, ongoing outmigration is having adverse consequences for California and its blue cousins. Red states are benefitting. The influx of money, skilled labor, tech expertise, and businesses are gifts.

Blue state population drains have been occurring for a couple of decades. Outmigration is compounded by low fertility rates. COVID tyranny -- generally worse in blue states -- spurred further exoduses. Blue states have yet to recover fully from draconian lockdowns.

Wrote Steven Malanga in a fact-packed analysis for City Journal, February 4:

By contrast, Democratic states dominate the list of places with the biggest outflow of residents. Nine of the ten states losing the most population are Democratic, led by California, with a net loss of 229,000 residents, and including New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Illinois. A notable addition to the bottom ten is Colorado -- a politically competitive state as recently as 2019 but dominated by Democrats since. Unlike California and New York, which have seen net outmigration for more than a decade, Colorado’s fortunes have only recently turned, but dramatically so, as the state recorded the eighth-highest net loss of residents last fiscal year. Only four of the 15 Democratic trifecta states last year gained residents: Washington, Oregon, Delaware, and Maine. In all, Democratic-led states lost about 495,000 residents to net migration.

Opening the borders to millions of “undocumented” migrants was supposedly the remedy for what ails blue states. Population replenishment -- albeit with poorly educated, low-skilled peoples -- is necessary. Welfare dependency ensures Democrat control. More bodies are required for U.S. Census purposes.

The Biden administration oversaw and manipulated the 2020 Census data to make sure illegals were counted for political reasons. Beyond propping up blue states, hordes of illegals streaming into red states were supposed to “transform” them. With millions of illegals still in the country, Democrats’ hope of transformations isn’t dead yet, but President Trump is determined to foil their schemes. The president closed the borders at an astonishing clip. In little more than a year, over 2.8 million illegals have been deported or have self-deported. The SAVE Act needs to be passed.

The point is worth stressing. Democrats are preoccupied with political survival. Without more bodies -- without larger numbers of pliant constituents -- population shifts sound a death knell. The 2030 census is pivotal. Perhaps eight -- maybe more -- U.S. House seats and electoral college votes are expected to shift to red states. The next census is yet another reason to maintain GOP congressional majorities and elect J.D. Vance president -- the GOP’s putative nominee -- in 2028.
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With Trump’s rise in 2016, party realignment has accelerated. The college-educated affluent are now mainstays of the Democrat coalition, along with blacks. That represents an historic reversal. The GOP used to be the party of big money. Yes, money counts, and money fuels the progressive Left’s control of institutions, but those advantages aren’t enough. Numbers matter, and the Great American Middle are the numbers.

Working class and middle-income Americans are trending toward the GOP -- or more, accurately, away from Democrats and toward Trump. Jacksonian Democracy, Lincoln Republicanism, McKinley’s working man’s GOP, and FDR’s New Deal are proof that working-class and middle-income voters decide political fortunes.

Not all the wealthy are Democrat locks, however. More of them are abandoning blue states. Since the affluent pay a disproportionate share of taxes, that’s a gut punch to spendthrift Democrats, who keep raising taxes, which helps fuel their states’ doom loops.

New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani is proposing higher taxes on the wealthy to finance his free lunch ploys. He’s about to learn the hard way that money flees quickly and fixed assets can be divested. His supporters claim that if the wealthy don’t like paying more taxes and decide to leave, their businesses can seized. As one of Mamdani’s backers said in an X post video, anyone looking to scram could face confiscatory fines. Never mind constitutional guarantees. Mandani’s supporters are edging closer to the Russian mindset circa 1961.

Not incidentally, blue-collar and middle-income citizens pay taxes, too. Socially, these cohorts anchor communities. They provide skilled labor and management. They’re service providers. They start small businesses. It’s a double whammy for blue states when the wealthy and the Great American Middle departs.

In the early 2000s, Ruy Teixeira and John Judis wrote The Emerging Democratic Majority. It was an optimistic assessment of the Democrats’ future. To Teixeira’s credit, he admits that not only did a Democrat majority not materialize, but that the progressive moment has passed. Teixeira counsels Democrats to return to a more centrist approach to policy and governance. But are Democrats listening? It doesn’t seem so.

A majority of Virginia voters -- driven by affluent, government careerists and contractors in Northern Virginia’s D.C. suburbs -- just elected Abigail Spanberger governor and handed Democrats legislative majorities. No sooner were Democrats sworn in then a slew of new tax proposals emerged. Wasn’t Democrats’ mantra affordability? They’re also pushing softer criminal penalties. And Spanberger signed an executive order ending cooperation with federal authorities to curtail immigration enforcement. Democrats need the bodies.

Another reason people are leaving blue states, quality of life. Portland is an example.

Wrote Mark Hemmingway for RealClearInvestigations, February 4:

In December, bestselling author and humorist David Sedaris wrote a New Yorker magazine essay about a recent trip to Portland, Oregon. While on a walk to a donut shop, he “lost count of the strung-out addicts I passed on my way” before eventually encountering four homeless people huddled around an empty baby carriage and smoking drugs right on the sidewalk. Moments later, a dog belonging to one of the addicts rushed out and bit him.

Joel Kotkin, a well-regarded demographer and old-school Democrat, in a February 1 New York Post opinion piece, wonders if California is a “lost cause?” After cataloguing many of California’s woes caused by Democrats, Kotkin writes that there aren’t enough Republicans in the once Golden State to win and effect change. He’s right about that. His hope is that “San Jose’s pragmatic [Democrat] Mayor Matt Mahan” wins his party’s gubernatorial nomination. We suppose he’s a voice of sanity. But can one sane voice change California’s miserable dynamic?

Probably not. With a younger generation of Democrats moving even further left, and increasing numbers of sensible Californians voting with their feet, California’s troubles may be baked in. As is the case in other blue states.

Maybe Democrats should consult history? Germans remember. Go ask them.

https://www.americanthinker.co...tates_doom_loop.html

Well, the lefties to run the table in CA, control most everything. Any changes will be minimal and meaningless.

And the people leaving aren’t the ones on the public dole, they have jobs, assets & pay taxes.

In Jan 2026 the CA State budget was 2.9 billion in the red. They do have a reserve, have to dig into it to pay the difference.

...but think about how much better it is for the environment to load up a tanker and sail that bad boy from the other side of the world.

Wait... it is only the refineries over here that cause pollution. Got it.

Is there some hope?

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/...734408&lctg=26773771

Steve Hilton Promises a ‘Political Revolution’ in California, and He’s Leading in the Polls

California’s leading Republican gubernatorial candidate, Steve Hilton, has laid out an ambitious vision to overhaul the Golden State and upend the progressive policies that have defined it for years. Despite running as a Republican in one of the bluest states in the country, Hilton has emerged as a serious contender, currently leading in recent primary polling. With momentum on his side, the prospect of Hilton capturing the GOP nomination and mounting a formidable statewide challenge appears increasingly plausible.

At a town hall in Carmichael, California, Hilton was pressed on how he would actually govern in a state dominated by Democrats. In response, he outlined not only his policy vision, but what he described as “a political revolution” that would immediately shift the balance of power in Sacramento if he were elected. Still, Hilton made clear he would not rely on political momentum alone. He said he would take a page from President Trump’s playbook, arriving in office with pre-written executive orders and a team prepared to aggressively use every available lever of executive authority to advance his agenda from day one.

"The people voted for change. They voted for a very, very clear platform," Hilton said.

Here it is, my CalAffordable platform. End the Democrats' climate insanity. So we have $3 gas, cut your electric bills in half. End free healthcare for illegal immigrants. So we lower healthcare costs for you. Cut the bloat and fraud in state government. So we cut taxes for working people. Your first 100 grand tax-free. And end the insane regulations on building. And end the war on single-family homes. So you can have a home you can afford to buy. So that's very clear. And I'm going to be banging that home for the whole rest of the campaign. And I'm going to say to them, I expect you to work with me to implement that. I expect that cooperation.

"And if you don't do it, what are you doing except what you've been lecturing us about for all these years? Undermining democracy, overturning elections. Is that what you want to do? So that's my starting point," he continued. "Now let's say, and actually, by the way, I think me being elected really will change the dynamic in Sacramento to a certain extent. But I'm not assuming anything other than grudging cooperation on a few things. So let's be real. And your question is really, what can you do? It does go to the executive branch, okay? That's the heart of it."

cont...

quote:

Originally posted by PR64:
Not because of saving the planet but it fits my retiree lifestyle.

Totally unrelated to the discussion:

I hope the EV in my retiree lifestyle is a golf cart, to get me to and from the neighbor's house (aka: bar), alongside a diesel tractor for farting around the property.

chellim, thanks for the interesting article.

I just heard this week that Newsom/California instituted a 400.00 fee to own a dog? Dont know the validity of that but on it's face it sounds like something stupid they would do.