During an interview with California Insider, Victor Davis Hanson was asked where California was headed. Without hesitation, he said, it is “headed to oblivion.” He explained that people are leaving California to go to hell-hot Texas or desert Nevada, that have become paradises in their minds. We took paradise and turned it into hell, so they’re leaving.
He said it was hard to destroy California given its huge amounts of timber minerals, oil, natural gas, and its four of the top-rated universities in the world. “It’s hard to destroy that inheritance, but we did,” he said.
Quantifying It
“How do you quantify that? You can use almost any measurement you want to use. Fuel, we have the highest gasoline prices in the United States, partly because we don’t develop our own oil or natural gas, partly because we have blended fuels that give marginally cleaner air but they’re very expensive, partly because we have the highest gasoline taxes … in the United States, partly because our regulations are such, refiners don’t want to improve and expand.
“If you look at homeless people, we have almost half of the nation’s homeless people… we have 1/3 of the nation’s welfare recipients, 27% of the state residents were not born in the United States so that poses an enormous challenge of integration and assimilation. We didn’t do that very well.
“Our school test scores are around 45, rated out of 50. We used to be in the top 10. If you look at taxes, we have the highest income tax. I think the governor is now going to sign a tax bill on top incomes, the highest gasoline tax, and our sales tax, given the local and county add-ons, is among the highest.
“… San Francisco has the highest per capita property crime rate in the United States. Los Angeles is now one of the most violent cities statistically. If you look at housing per square foot, these homes that you see out the window one between 1000 and $1500 per square foot, about eight or nine times the national average.
“If you look at the price of electricity … it’s not reliable and … the grid is ossified, so if you live in the foothills or dry areas with October-November winds, the power lines snap, and then you get these raging forest fires in the Sierra Nevada or up in the northern part of the state or even the Los Angeles hills…
The Lost Infrastructure
There used to be “a consensus that if you’re going to grow, you have to have infrastructure. So you built dams and aqueducts. And at one time, I know this sounds crazy, but the 99 freeway was not the most lethal per mile driven freeway in the United States.” It was “one of the most modern, so was the 101, so was LAX …. They’ve just, they just calcified. They were not developed commiserate with population increase …
There is much more on the clip.
This is what the Progressives want for all of us. It is what they are doing in every city and now suburban and rural areas.
Watch:
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