Fleeing California

you this is California while this state is known for its glitz and glamour it is also home to some of the highest real estate prices highest taxes highest homelessness population and highest number of business regulations in many parts of the state you've got tent cities crime is out of control look at the bottom percentile there are people who are dying on our streets the estimate is that 1,000 people will die on the streets of Los Angeles all of this combined with an extremely high cost of living is forcing residents and businesses to leave the state of record numbers I'll tell you Californians when they move to Texas they're shocked their standard of living goes up 40 to 50 percent overnight is Texas the new California the rivalry between Texas and California the largest number of people relocating to Texas are coming from California and many of us are leaving not only California but other liberal states for a better lifestyle for for our children failed liberal policies are just simply encouraging the situation people just saying we can't put up with this anyways and you just can't live like this California and Texas both have large amounts of land plenty of natural resources minority majority populations and are home to some of the country's biggest corporations these similarities match with their layering policy differences makes them perfect for comparison over half of Californians are thinking of leaving the state and the biggest reason why is the sky high cost of living the cost of living in California is somewhere between 40 and 50 percent higher than it is in Texas houston you can get a three-bedroom house for a couple hundred thousand dollars with a backyard you can you can your kids can play you can throw a ball with your kids in the backyard you'd have a good school try doing that in California the state and local governments are doing things to restrict the development of new housing units in the free market and they do this through restrictions on building they do this through things like rent control which which disincentivizes the creation new rental units and a set of disastrous policies have contributed to to keeping housing costs vastly growing cost of Energy's higher the cost of gasoline and transportation everything costs more in California extensive environmental regulations have also sharply raised the energy cost in California where they are 50 percent higher than the national average over 1 million Californians live in what is officially defined as energy poverty it's very hard on a middle-class income to live in this state many of them who were born and raised in the state are realizing that it's become unaffordable and that's heartbreaking [Music] [Music] the left spends a lot of time and energy talking about income inequality and ways to fix it but ironically California the great progressive experiment ranks fourth in the list of states with the highest level of income inequality and second in the nation for the fastest growing income inequality according to the Census Bureau's supplemental poverty measure California has the highest poverty rate in the country with one in five Californians living below the poverty line California has always had the nation's highest poverty rate and proportionately it's about 30 percent higher than it is in Texas and a third of the people on assistance in the nation are in California so how is California handling the growing poverty rate in their state California spends more than Texas Arizona South Dakota North Dakota Colorado Utah Nevada Oregon Idaho Hawaii Louisiana Arkansas Oklahoma Kansas Nebraska New Mexico and Montana on welfare annually combined state and local governments have spent a gargantuan amount of money oftentimes wastefully overlapping each other yet the incredible spending has not alleviated one of California's most vexing problems in fact it seems to have made it worse homelessness has taken over California with the problem developing into a state of emergency and although homelessness is dropping nationwide California with 12% of the population houses 49 percent of the nation's homeless one of the issues that I face living here is the fear of the homeless epidemic because a lot of these homeless individuals they're drug addicts some of our sex offenders and that's become a huge problem there are people defecating on the street right in front of my apartment we have syringes there we have a lot of issues in California that are seem to be blinded to you know this the policies that come out of here and I don't think the rest of the nation really understands what's happening in California and we see this not only here not only on Skid Row but from San Diego all the way on up to Sacramento San Francisco every city is being impacted by this if California were a country it would have the fifth largest GDP in the world California's economic engine is driven by its overshirt size of technology giants and small to midsize businesses because of Californians hard work and ingenuity they've been able to create this economic behemoth yet this state is trying to slay this golden goose with suffocating business regulations over the last ten years over 15,000 businesses have fled the state and the pace is accelerating while Apple Google Facebook and the other tech giant's get talked about the most it is California small businesses that are the lifeblood of the state's economy companies with less than a hundred employees make up ninety eight percent of all businesses in the state and employ nearly 40% of its workforce these businesses are what make California the economic powerhouse that it is I haven't made a profit in five years and some of the servers here can make between forty and fifty thousand dollars a year because I have to pay the minimum wage and they get tips and I end up with nothing and that's for a that's for a part-time job it's it's what is called in the business first phase economics right because it's an emotional choice to feel good about giving the employee more money never looking at the second phase and what it does to business and how it causes this domino effect of okay I have to now let somebody go right I have to raise my crisis in in the restaurant it's it's a lose-lose for everybody you [Music] while California embodies the progressive wing of US politics and governments central roles in people's lives Texas represents a deeply contrasting political ideology and has followed a very different path the state's focus on individual liberty and personal responsibility stems from this frontier identity and its decade of self-determination as the Republic of Texas it has voted Republican in every presidential election over the past 36 years it is difficult to think of a resonant issue being debated today that doesn't find Texas in California on opposite sides of the debate Texas is all about freedom but that's that's really the spirit of Texas Texas is a a state where anybody can start with nothing and achieve anything if you look at the US Census Bureau's interstate migration data you'll see that the greatest number of people leaving California go to Texas there are lots and lots of jobs the economy is growing there's prosperity wages are going up low taxes low regulations free enterprise in Texas we like jobs said all of us I said even the Democrats like jobs they don't how to get them but they like them in direct contrast to California one of the great draws into Texas is the affordable cost of living and you see that for example with a rent for a two-bedroom apartment in San Francisco versus Dallas it's more than three times more expensive in San Francisco California gallon of gas is nearly four bucks a gallon Texas a gallon of gas is just over $2 a gallon you want to talk about making a difference now listen if you're a tech billionaire you don't care about $4 a gallon gas your SUV goes to your private jet you fill it up and it's all funny money to you but how about to a schoolteacher people who move to Texas are shocked at their dramatic increase in buying power when you couple low cost of living with Texans keeping more of their take-home pay California has the highest taxes 13.3% top marginal tax rate in California 13.3% you know what it is in Texas zero not only our individuals coming to Texas but so our businesses and they're coming by the thousands we met with one of those small business owners who came to Texas fleeing California's oppressive anti business environment bringing with him jobs capital and an auto restoration business that over the course of its life grew tenfold in size living in California for 35 years of your business did you see radical changes happening in that state that made it harder for you to keep your business open there were tremendous changes yeah particularly with the regulating body called Bureau of auto repair that agency I think that power-hungry to the point where individuals would throw businesses like mine under the bus to try to please customer complaints no matter how small they were to to further their own careers no bureau of auto repair Texas they've that's a good thing do you feel like it's easier to to live out your dream here in Texas senators in California oh it's not it's not even close yeah absolutely and Texas is a great economy and it's so easy to be in business way more freer here in regards to less restrictions red tape so I was in the auto repair business in California they required city city fees it required state fees environmental fees you know you have all that overhead to start with on your shoulders and and then all those regulating bodies to please whereas here you can just be you can just immediately open up when you think of Texas industry you think of oil and beef but the reality is Texas has as many Fortune 500 companies based there as California and has an incredibly robust high-tech and startup sector Texas innovates in it when it comes to high-tech you look at Austin for example where high-tech companies are moving in like crazy venture capital companies are moving in like crazy and hopefully you have hundreds or thousands of small businesses being formed to take on the next big business in the next visit and it's that creative destruction that drives the economy forward that innovates that's what creates opportunities that's where new jobs come from that's why young people are moving to Texas because Texas is where the jobs are Texas is where you can make a future and and provide for your family [Music] as the cost of living is increasing and the quality of life is decreasing you're seeing a lot of Californians flee to Texas flee to Florida flee to Tennessee flee to Montana and elsewhere nobody wants to just hand over their money nobody wants to give up so much of that that money that they've earned to the government I want to be able to sell as much as I can to make the most amount of profit that I can that I can hire more people and open up a second place right but sometimes I don't think I don't think I would open a second place here maybe that would be in a different state [Music] the divergent paths that these two states have taken are purely a result of the political choices that they have made the disastrous results of California's progressive ideology stand in stark contrast to the Lone Star state's conservative policies that have led to the Texas miracle thank you for watching this video Praeger you is conducting a nationwide survey to help us better understand the issues that matter to you for example would you consider moving out of your state because of its current policies let us know your thoughts your input will really help us out we appreciate your support [Music] [Music]

Channel: PragerU

Views: 1,936,547

Rating: 4.8683467 out of 5

Keywords: prageru, prager university, will witt, tomi lahren, ted cruz, small business owners, cost of living, standard of living, red states, blue state, mass exodus, golden state, texas, california

Id: 6Svc7GLUqd4

Length: 13min 44sec (824 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 11 2020