I don't have a strong opinion on the matter but it's a topic that is argued about. Many reject the idea.



Although it appears that I'm overtly anti-California I'm not really. They just do a lot of dumb political things. I'm not a fan of Kansas either although that reminds me that I've been meaning to check on the results of their elections.



I quit my job in 2013 and haven't worked since. Please update your ad hominem attacks.

yeah maybe on r/t_d it’s argued about.

Weird how California does so many dumb liberal political things yet despite that Californians make sooooo much more money than any red state.

Okay, but in order to complete my records: have you ever had a grown up job that wasn’t paid for by taxes?

Okay, that's the Trump thing on Reddit, right? Never seen it but I've heard about it here.



Don't they have to, though? Then again, I guess the rest of the country / world is paying for it.



Not since the 80s but I've also never been a janitor. Not that I wouldn't want to be one. I could listen to talk radio all night.

Paying for what? The things that California produces? Isn't that called commerce?

There's some reports about Facebook ghosting posts that call for nationwide marches tomorrow.

If you think that’s bad, wait until the general strike. They’ll send death squads to your house.

Surely their outrageous wages are passed on but I momentarily lost sight of the fact that California's largest employers are virtually all government. Can't pass those on through commerce, at least not directly. Yet.

Marches for what?

The firing of Jeff Sessions, which would effectively replace Rosenstein's oversight of the Mueller investigation by a lackey who said he would try to defund it.

Which is of course the entire point of firing Sessions.

And which was the point of specifically proposing Kavanaugh as SC justice.

And which was the point of firing Comey.

Guilty AF!

California’s largest employers are virtually all universities, and if you can’t see how that relates to the large number of high paying private sector jobs in California I’m not sure I can explain why simply enough.

Universities are just indoctrination centers, which is why there is no premium for degree holders as paid for by The Free Market™.*

* exceptions apply

Ah yes, the divine right of kings clause from the preamble of the constitution. How could I forget?

The idea actually comes from separation of powers. Members of the executive branch aren't empowered to undermine the president, which includes indictments. I'm not digging into this myself, I'm not that interested, but apparently there are justice department memos from 1973 and 2000 that are relevant to this idea that a sitting president can't even be indicted.

High cost of living and high taxes. That's why there's a large number of high paying private sector jobs there. It probably doesn't hurt that there's a massive infrastructure to churn out those that will make six figure incomes and live about the same as those making a third as much elsewhere.

That isn’t how markets work.

That’s right. Better pace yourself, you only get one more today.

Yes, it’s a ****hole.

tfw can't into causality

The question of whether or not a sitting president can be indicted, seems to be much more central during a republican presidency. There is a well-documented historical trend here.

The separation of powers actually implies that Trump does not have the power to shut down the investigation.

Mueller himself seems to be of the opinion that sitting presidents can't be indicted, just like Kavanaugh opines publically, but that won't stop him from investigating, and bringing charges to his entourage (it might be Don Jr.'s time in the barrel soon), and possibly to DJT himself after his presidency. Or, and this has happened before, the investigation could be so damning that the pressure is simply too big not to resign, although this is a pretty fundamentalist batch of republican senators.

Except when corporations have no other way to attract talent.



Said no former Californian ever.



Only one out of two of those Justice Department memos was written during Republican reign. I'm not sure that's how trends work.

You're welcome.

California blows if you don't have a car (and aren't fortunate enough to live in the 0.01% of area whose local governments made their cities bike / pedestrian friendly).

It also blows if you have a car because then, guess what, now you're sitting in traffic for an hour or two every morning. (But at least it'll be warm and sunny while you are waiting.)

Tech companies prefer candidates who are willing to work in California, not vice versa. Companies pay you to move there. They pay you more to work there. A lot more. Smaller companies will pass on you if you aren’t willing to move, and some bigger companies will too if they want you for a certain team.

It ain’t a perk, bruh.

Sarcasm, I assume. I mean, we’ve both lived there.

CA has *terrible* infrastructure. Partly because of terrible planning and design, and partly because the place has grown amazingly fast. Faster than can be planned around.

CA is also absurdly expensive. I can't say why, but no one should be paying $900,000 for a 1,400sq ft three bed two bath on a 7,000 sq ft lot that doesn't include a private beach.

I spent over 30 years in CA and I hope I never have to live there again.

It also blows if you have a car because the California DMV is understaffed and incompetent.

Zoning and ****ing retarded property tax laws.

Every terrible stereotype about American government is doubly true of CA bureaucracy. Doing anything is a huge nightmare. The infrastructure just isn't in place to get anything done well. And the infrastructure that is in place is full of incompetent workers just pushing through for their guaranteed lifetime retirement income.

Example: want to put up a small enclosure to store your garbage cans? I hope you have drawings from an architect, $1,200 to spend on permits, and seven months to wait for approval from his majesty's planning commission. And then you have to deal with your HOA.

In the election a few days ago, a family member told me they voted in favor of California state ballot proposition 6. This proposition would have eliminated a portion of the gas tax, thereby reducing the state budget by $2.9 billion. I am not certain if all of that revenue went to infrastructure, but I think that was the idea behind the tax, and I am going to assume most of that revenue was being used for things like road repair.

When I asked why they were voting no, they replied that the state "already wasted too much money and didn't deserve more". And this was coming from a public school teacher....

Thankfully, the ballot proposition failed, with 3,866,346 voting no (and 3,149,068 voting yes).

How bout the fact that California locks home owners into their rax rate. On the face it’s some keeping grandmas in their house ****, but all it really does is drain their housing market of both supply and liquidity. The longer you’re in your house the less you can afford to move to a new one.

That's bad. What would have been even worse is if state ballot proposition 10 had passed (it was also defeated, though also not by a massive margin), which was introduced by the those on the left, and would have eliminated restrictions on local governments to institute further rent control.

California is an absolutely beautiful state overall. We enjoyed our time there. I was fortunate enough to be in Fresno (said almost nobody ever), I lived in Clovis which people in Clovis are quick to point out is not Fresno. If I remember correctly, you can tell when you're in Clovis because the street signs are a different color and all of the E. WhateverRoad Aves. turn into W. WhateverRoad Aves.

I never had to make the DMV line myself. Surely my wife did. I don't remember that ordeal personally but I certainly saw the long lines. Maybe other states have similar lines but it is easy to under-appreciate just how short lines elsewhere are by comparison.

Speaking of propery tax, I recently got out city and county notices. Around $1300 total. They say my house appraises at $130,000, a number I'm not going to challenge. I wonder how much a modest 1600ish square foot house on a modest 1/2 lot might go for in Fresno, let alone more expensive areas now.

I know we disagree on much with taxation but considering many states already have a sales tax would you support eliminating property tax? That would help both people that can't afford to pay high property taxes and those that want to move. How long have they been doing that?

Wow. California can even screw up tax cuts.

Taxes are a stupid way for a government to fund itself, but if I had to choose only one to eliminate it would be sales taxes. If I had to choose two, it would be sales and income taxes.

What’s not fair about real estate is that’s the only kind of property that’s taxed, and that imputed rent isn’t taxed.

What’s not fair about income taxes is that individuals and corporations are taxed so differently. People are taxed on their gross income but corporations are taxed on net. It’s just a way for rich people to evade taxes. The mortgage interest deduction is bull**** for existing but at least it’s the one place in the US tax code where poor people are treated he same as rich people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Jarvis

tl;dr: California is simply too nice, and too many people come to live here. Worse, some of those people are greedy *******s.

California probably was nice in the 30s.

Jon, why do you believe that government should essentially be the lien holder for personal property?

Los Angeles especially. Then everybody realized this and moved there.

None of the words you used mean what you think they mean.

Taxing income punishes work. Taxing sales punishes consumption. Taxing real estate punishes land improvement. Not taxing other kinds of wealth (private property) punishes people who choose to invest productively instead of speculating (gambling). Not taxing imputed rent punishes people who choose to invest productively instead of buying a personal home.

Taxes are stupid but they don’t exist in a vacuum. As long as you have some of them, you have to accept that they interact with each other and plan around that.

This is why I call flat tax boosters ****ing retarded, by the way.

LeTs sIMpLiFy tHE TaX coDe bY PuNIsHIng PeOPLe wHO dO aLL ThE WoRk