california taxes

Why My Friends are Fleeing to Texas

I’ve been traveling for the past several week, mostly spending time in Texas to visit friends from California (all native Californians) who have fled the Golden State for a state that seems to overflow with liberty.

Texas is a pretty nice place. The people are incredibly respectful, the taxes are significantly lower, and the cost of living is sensational.

During the COVID situation, Texas has not employed a mandatory mask policy either. Why? Because common sense seems to rule in Texas.

For those of you who have had some degree of medical training, you know that the majority of people wearing these masks are doing so improperly and are therefore doing nothing to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus (in fact, it could be argued that the improper use of masks is enabling the spread of COVID-19).

In my opinion, if the powers that be were more concerned with curtailing the virus, and less concerned with subtly controlling our behavior, THEY WOULD DEMAND PEOPLE EMPLOY SANITARY MEASURES WHEN USING THEIR FILTHY CELL PHONES.

People take them to the bathroom, place them on the floor, lay them on the checkout counter, sneeze on their hands and then touch their screens.

And no doubt, when responding to the above, California progressives will call me a “conspiracy theorist.”

What else is new.

Meantime, I had a post on my BrianSussmanShow Facebook page regarding traffic:

Six months ago I drove from Chicago to San Francisco, and I’m just finishing up a trip from the Fort worth, Texas area to San Francisco. My observations:

– Drivers in Chicago/Northern Illinois are the most vindictive.
– Drivers in Texas are overall the fastest, but most courteous.
– Drivers in California are the most clueless and reckless.
– There are more pickup trucks in Texas, New Mexico and Wyoming, than cars.
– I never saw ONE Prius in Wyoming, Texas, or New Mexico.
– The roads in Texas and Arizona are the best (Nevada’s are pretty close).
– The roads in California are clearly the worst.

Your thoughts?

Of course, people responded by the score. Here are some of my favorites:

 

  • Janie Sippel One time when we were in Big Sky Montana, we saw a smart car and we were shocked to see one, because you see a lot of trucks in Montana, when we passed the car we noticed it had a California license plate….. well that figured!…….hahah🙄
  • Eric Niewoehner I envy you. Stuck up here in Alaska, can’t drive anywhere.
  • Keven Birdwell Driving on California freeways feel like you are in a tin can tied to the bumper of a “Just Married” car…
  • Christopher Pilla Brian, my family and I left the Bay last August and live in McKinney-TX. I agree with what you said. I also have noticed when something happens here to the roads, they are quick to fix them. The people are overly courteous driving here, it can be annoying sometimes. Best decision I ever made. Living in a red state makes all the difference on everything.
  • Kim Childs Well I4 in Central Florida is the most deadly. It has traumatized my son who was used to elderly drivers in NC but he is convinced Floridians have a death wish. He said he’s seen more dead on I4 than in Afghanistan. Road quality is fine other than there always being construction somewhere. It’s the untrained drivers. We need to adopt the way Germany trains drivers.
  • Top Fan
    Michael F Soqui Seemed like every other voting cycle we voted for money to fix our roads….and they always passed, and our taxes always went up…but the roads always states the same….
  • Matt Miller Texas, the home of two-lane country roads with no shoulders and a 75 mph posted speed limit. And a motto of “Drive Friendly”!
    2
  • Steve Gysler Agree.
  • Dee Murphy Not many electric cars in many states when it comes down to it versus NY, CA and a few large cities.
  • Lou York Nope you pretty much nailed….Boston and That whole Eadt Coast corridor are the rudest and most aggressive drivers
    3
  • Gary Thomas Commifornia roads use to be the best when returning from another state, now that has certainly changed for the worse. When you see the truck tire road sharks, slow down and move over…..there’s a pot hole that would eat a Prius.
    2
  • Robert N Lilia Chavez Pretty much on the mark. Not to mention all the tolls in Chicago!
  • Lori Edwards Range All of it is pretty dead on.
  • Kathleen Mc Hale Browne Could not agree more on all
  • Patricia Nelson The fastest roads roads were when I drove through Indiana when Mike Pence was governor, and turning the states economy from red to black with the return of factories all over the state, particularly the auto industry. Lots of people working and plent…See More
    1
  • Colette Ellis I love Fort Worth, was there JUST prior to lockdown 66 days ago. People are amazing, pace is wonderful, open space, roads beautiful, and AMERICA!
    2 Replies

  • James Gaskell Illinois, Indiana, & New York City some of the worst roads in the 🇺🇸

    Florida some of the best roads.

     

    • 1d
  • Victor Grepo You know it, Brian…you got it right about what KSFO has turned into as well! I miss hearing you and Katie on there!😇🙁🙂
    1
  • Bob Coomber In complete agreement with most – but I’ve never been in Chicago….probably because I hear they’re pretty vindictive!
  • Mark Mathews Spot-on Brian!!
  • Sheldon Haynie Drive in New England, in a Nor’Easter if you dare
  • Jeanne Bryan Insalaco Katy should have been in that road trip! No couches or tool boxes in thread lie in CA! I lived
    Loved hearing what was in the road!
  • Dan Young I’m about to drive from California to Florida and looking forward to better roads and more courteous drivers. The driving here has been insane for years but it’s gotten twice as bad since the pandemic. People constantly run red lights and stop signs, do not stop for pedestrians, and generally behave like they’re the only drivers on the road.
    1
  • Rick Novak We moved to Nevada three years ago from the East Bay and agree that the roads here are much better than the Bay Area.
  • DeNise Golding-Schulmeyer When we left California we never saw another BMW until Oklahoma city.
  • Bob Farrington It’s not just the road condition other states roads are better landscaped. They remove all garbage and debris after wrecks.
    2

  • Heidi Cherney Whipp You haven’t been on Pennsylvania roads lately, I’m guessing.😂
  • Wendy Geltz pretty much you can tell when you get back to California the roads are crap here
    1
  • Clyde Lady The money for roads in Ca has been stolen. But you know that Brian.
    5

 

California’s Out-Migration

Californians may still love the beautiful weather, spectacular beaches, and breathtaking mountains, but more and more they are fed up with the costs associated with living in the Golden State.  Between the outrageous cost of housing, socialistic taxes, and the entire state having been declared a “sanctuary” for illegal aliens, people are picking up and fleeing to lower-cost states such Nevada, Arizona, and Texas.

The chief reason for heading east is the cost of housing—both in terms of purchase and rent.  The median price for a three-bedroom home where I live, in the greater San Francisco Bay Area region, is nearly $800,000.  In the County of San Francisco, the media price is over $1.2 million!  That means to qualify for an 80 percent loan a buyer needs over $300,000 cash to make the down payment.

In terms of rent, San Francisco ranks as the nation’s most expensive rental market, followed by New York, according to the website Zumper’s top-10 list.  San Jose (which is the actually the largest city in the Bay Area) comes in third place, and Oakland in 9th.  The median monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco is almost $3,400.  The median rent for a two-bedroom apartment is about $4,500.

And then there are the taxes.  Individuals earning $52,000 per year are at taxed at 9.3 percent.  After that the tax brackets escalate to 13.3 percent for those making $1 million.  California sales tax is at least 7.5 percent, depending on the city.  Property taxes are low by percentage (1 percent), but pricy due to the high cost of real estate.   The state gas tax currently totals 58-cents per gallon and, because of a new law, could rise another 72-cents in 2020!

Of course, we can’t forget the insane sanctuary laws.  Thanks to elected officials like Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf who, in February, gave criminal aliens a heads-up that ICE was on the way, some 800 bad guys targeted by ICE slipped away.  Doesn’t make me feel safe knowing that such lowlifes are on the loose.  How bad are some of these dudes?  As I write this, three aliens who avoided capture in February have since been nabbed by the Feds.  One was a Mexican national originally arrested for robbery and gun crimes—but was released back into the community despite an ICE detainer request in November!  Another Mexican national was just busted for a DUI, despite having been deported three times and having prior convictions for false imprisonment, DUI and battery of a spouse.  The third was a Mexican national who was arrested for corporal injury of a spouse; he had previously been deported twice with criminal convictions including drug possession, hit-and-run, DUIs, possessions of narcotics equipment and a parole violation.

Despite California’s efforts to shield criminal illegal aliens from arrest by the Federal Government, this year alone ICE has arrested nearly 9,000 illegal aliens in California, which is 15 percent of the total number arrested in the entire country.  Who knows how many are still out there?

According to the latest U.S. Census data, from July 2016 to July 2017, more people moved out of California to other states than moved in from other states.  It’s called domestic out-migration.  During that 12-month period, California saw a net loss of just over 138,000 people, while Texas had a net increase of more than 79,000 people.  Arizona gained more than 63,000 residents, and Nevada gained more than 38,000.

Data from United Van Lines shows some of the most popular moving destinations for Californians from 2015 to 2017 were Texas, Arizona, Oregon, Washington and Colorado.  Other experts say Nevada remains a top destination.

Internal Revenue Service data illustrates that the middle-class and middle-age residents are the ones leaving.  Even Republican California Congressman Devin Nunes took a swipe at his own state recently in a tweet, calling it out for the “highest taxes in USA that make it hard for people to afford to live there.”