As U-Haul confirms, 2023 was the fourth consecutive year during which more Californians rented one-way trucks to leave California than residents of any other state. By the count of Los Angeles Times editor Paul Thornton, more than 800,000 Californians left the state last year, but their “reasons to leave don’t explain the impulse to insult California on the way out,” so people should leave “without verbally trashing the place.”
Those on the way out are not trashing “the place” with wonders such as Yosemite Valley, redwood forests, beautiful ocean beaches, and such. For Tom Garnett, who left his “beloved home state” of California for North Carolina, it was a matter of politicians pushing “costly progressive policies on climate change, homelessness and other programs, but with no clear measures of success.” Mr. Garnett has a point.
“The problem of homelessness has become intractable under status quo policies,” explains UCLA economics professor Lee Ohanian. “California has spent $20 billion on homelessness in the last five years, and during this period the number of unhoused persons has increased by nearly 40,000,” with a current total in the range of 172,000. State politicians must also confront, Ohanian........