Then why do they keep passing legislation that helps them instead of tax cuts for billionaires?
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What is compassionate about making people live on the street? So you want socialism now? Ok then build apartment complex’s for them so they have a place to live. But no that isn’t what you compassionate people want to do. You want to feel sorry for them but not contribute a dime of tax money to help with the problem. Because after all we know cutting taxes solves all problems.
On a more constructive discussion. There really is only a few solutions to the problems California is having with housing and homelessness. It is expensive to live by the coast and not everyone can afford it. So either they move out and live somewhere else, or California has to build cheap housing communities but then “some” people will complain they are being socialists and building projects. Or they build a high speed mag lift into the desert where they can build cheaper housing for people.
I am the middle class. Head west young man was the mantra of my family. We never figured we were deserved anything but always moved to where the jobs were and tried to make a better community wherever we landed. Some of my family was lucky enough to stay where they were at but the rest of us left to make our fortunes in other locations. That is exactly the definition of Capitalism and what the United States was built on. But I am not opposed to your socialist leanings.
Andy
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Sure keep spreading the lie that poor people are a problem for everyone else. I guess buying up expensive California real estate while on food stamps is all the rage.
Sure! And if you are a supply side econ guy you know it all. Absolutely every answer in the world regardless of how bad it has gone for four decades.
I was born and raised in California. I bought a house in the 90’s here (I’ve lived all around the country and in other parts of the world.) I don’t need to explain my history but to say, taxes in california are interesting. Yes, California is a high tax state, but I should add, it’s higher for some than others. Yes, there is a State Income Tax in California and none in Washington State.
Looking again at the taxes on property in California vs Washington. In Washington State, King Co property tax is 1.05% of the current value of the property. California has a weird property tax whereas your property is taxed on the base value which is the price at which you bought the property. The County Tax Assessor adds 2% to the value of your basis per year.
In other words, my property tax on the home that I live in is 0.2%. So, it depends who you are in California. If you had bought a house in say the Bay Area in 2003 (your year in question), your property tax would probably be 0.5% to 0.6%. Now, the the people who pay the BIG taxes in California are Millennials. Like I said, some people pay more than others.
I’m not sure how that percentage is arrived at, but when it comes to Medicaid (Medical) 35% of People in California qualify for Medical. In Washington State that number is around 26%. Perhaps this is in part where this number (1/3 of the people in California were receiving money from the state ) is derived.
Food Stamps
California: 4.9% of Californians receive Food Stamps
Washington: 6.4% of Washingtonians receive Food Stamps
BTW 17% of Oregonians receive Food Stamps
You can compare the poverty rates in Washington and California here:
California has higher rate of poverty in all categories, much of this is due to the extreme poverty in Imperial County. On the link I provided, I found it interesting that Student debt in Washington is five times higher than California.
I hope you found a wonderful place to live in Washington. I’ve lived there and enjoy the spectacular environment that Washington has to offer, a State with a great population of people who enjoy the outdoors. As an aside, I graduated from Whitworth College the day that Mt St Helens erupted.
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I am not making a political statement but I am just stating my factual observation. My husband is a commercial contractor since the 1980s. In recent years he has been extremely busy on jobs for the top 1% who have left California and NY to move to our southern state. They have moved their corporate headquarters. Just sayin…
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Total tax burden for California: 8.89%
Total tax burden for Washington: 8.24%
This incorporates income taxes, consumption taxes, excise taxes, property taxes and others.
Seems like a long way to go to save 0.5% on your taxes.
I am surprised how closely the state align, but get there in different ways. I will also say that I live in Tennessee, which is near the bottom of the chart, but having lived in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, the lack of services here in the Volunteer State is breathtaking. Schools are the most obvious, but I also see it in the roads (lack of guard rails is sometimes an amazement), and things like garbage pickup and fire department, which we have to pay for privately.
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Casey
There are 100s of thousands of corporations.
I have an llc in ct.
Maybe 1 million or more corporations
I am referring to well known corporate leaders. They are moving away from California and NY. I understand there are millions of corporations.
This is such an old meme. I remember back in 1971-72 when the “Silicon Valley is Dead” …
Or
Getting Out: The Great California Exodus
LA Times Headline May 19th, 1991
Or
Record Number Leaves State as Economy Drags
-The Times, Sept. 2, 1993
Google and its parent company, Alphabet Inc.
Meta Platforms, Inc., formerly named Facebook, Inc
Apple Park is the corporate headquarters of Apple Inc.
Lockheed Martin – Sunnyvale aerospace
(AMD) – Santa Clara
Intel Corporation
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Just a few names that you might have heard of since the “Death of the Silicon Valley”.
How about Equinox the $30bil dollar data storage company in Redwood City?
Or Nvidia Corporation Headquarters $25bil Net assets?
Have you ever seen the Facebook (Meta) Campus. They’re not going anywhere soon. But give me a head’s up when the three million people move to your town who have come here since the “Death of The Silicon Valley”.
They might want to rename the SF Bay Area “Mark Twain Town” who said,
“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
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You are being used by some propagandists. Next we hear how great Florida is.
Yet some 280 million tourists back in 2018 going to California v 140 million going to Florida.
Plus Disney is spending more in CA than FL because Florida is business very unfriendly. As in crazy to destroy business. Perhaps we can supply side/outsource Disney World? As usual anyway to destroy our businesses. Oh and here is your tax cut? Sure. And your layoff.
I can’t speak for all of them but many of them own homes in many places. When you have that much money you can spend your time where you choose and in as many places as you choose.
Andy
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I understand your point but these are commercial properties. Big towers and office locations. It is a stream of traffic that occurs over time. There are so many projects that are ongoing and signed contracts for the next year. I’m not emotionally involved in this topic, I’m just stating something as a factual observation.
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Right casey, but if you are watching the office Reits right now that could be either a good thing or a bad thing. People are worried about the work from home phenomena right now and it is possible that Texas could go against that trend, but I wouldn’t want to bet on it just yet. There is no doubt that people are moving to Texas for now.
Andy
Ah…you do know…This is a partial list below. Such lists can be done for a lot of US corporations.
Where is Facebook headquarters in NY?
The 225 Park Avenue South office was nothing more than “great bridge space” to give the company time to operate while waiting on the Hudson Yards and Farley spaces. “We remain firmly committed to New York and further anchoring our footprint,” she said.Oct 25, 2022
Where is Facebook Toronto headquarters?
Facebook Toronto Head Office - 2300 Yonge St, Toronto, ON.
Where is Facebook based in London?
Rathbone Place
It is in Rathbone Place, which is just off the bustling shopping area of Oxford Street. The office is 247,000 square foot in size, and it has a public square, called Rathbone Square, and seven floors. Architect Frank Gehry designed it.May 27, 2018
Where is Facebook headquarters in Japan?
According to Nikkei Real Estate Market Report, Facebook’s original head office address in Japan was registered at a law firm in Shiroyama Trust Tower in Toranomon,Minato-ku, but in 2013 the company established an office in their current location at the Ark Hills Sengokuyama Mori Tower in Roppongi, Minato-ku.
It helps the poor not the middle class. The wealthy are indifferent to many of these policies, the cost to them are inconsequential.
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Define free market capitalism for me and how that’s applied under California’s stifling building and housing regulations.
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“Any economy is capitalist as long as private individuals control the factors of production. A purely capitalist economy is also a free market economy, meaning the law of supply and demand, rather than a central government, regulates production, labor, and the marketplace .”
Investopedia
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You really believe those stifling building and housing regulations are passed by Marxists? Those who are successful in the free market pass laws to maintain their quality of life. If you own a home in California why would you want more housing built when the major cities are already congested? It is all about NIMBY and frankly having driven in LA traffic I can’t say I blame them.
California as always represents the future. It foreshadows what happens when wealth concentrates at the expense of a disappearing middle class. The successful get to live on the California coast or the mountain resorts or the vineyards of Napa. The less successful have to relocate to the deserts of Nevada, Arizona, and Texas and hope that technology can provide enough water and generate enough electricity to keep the AC going 24/7.
Having driven cross country many a time I remain struck by how empty is much of the middle of America and how congested are the cities on the coast. It is pretty obvious where most of America want to live if all things were equal. It clearly illustrates why housing prices are so high in some places and so low in others. Demand matters a whole lot more than zoning laws.
IMO, the only way to significantly reduce housing costs in LA and SF is to significantly reduce the quality of life. Allow so much development that LA resembles Mumbai and start drilling for oil on the coast so that SF become Galveston. That’s a pretty big price to pay.
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Taxes on the middle class in CA are lower than in TX or OK or AR. CA taxes on the middle class rank the state as 32nd. The medium income is fourth as a state.
Yeah but you do not know how many guys who supported layoffs in the 80s and 90s cry in their beers supporting tax cuts for the wealthy and think they would have had an oil rig off of San Fran if only…que “welfare is to blame…”