OPINION:
Last week, in what was probably an attempt to inject levity into an otherwise grim situation, Gov. Gavin Newsom, California Democrat, appeared in an ad encouraging Floridians to move to California.
It was about as embarrassing as you might expect.
California is a beautiful state, and once upon a time had a dynamic economy. But over the last 30 years, the Golden State has been strangled by its own governments, both state and local. It has the lowest adult literacy rate in the United States, some of the highest crime rates, and among the highest tax burdens (13.5%, compared to Florida’s 9.1%), and is just generally in real trouble.
The ubiquitous images of people defecating on the streets of the once-great city of San Francisco is a perfect visual summary of the problems that California governments have created and tolerated.
Not surprisingly, migration away from California is substantial; more than 367,000 left California between July 2020 and July 2021, the most in the nation. At the same time, 220,890 refugees from other states found their way to Florida during the same 12 months.
Of course, this story is larger than just California and Florida.
June data from the Labor Department confirms that Republican governors and legislatures pretty much across the nation are leading the way in getting America back to work.
Through May, 9 of the top 10 states for jobs recovered since the pandemic began are led by Republican governors (including, naturally, the Sunshine State), and all of the top 10 states have Republican-controlled legislatures. Twelve of the 14 states that have more jobs than before the pandemic — Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Montana, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Utah — are run by Republicans.
Republican-led states on average have recovered over 100% of their lost jobs compared to just over 88% for states led by Democrats.
The average unemployment rate for the nation’s 28 states with Republican governors is just 3.0%. States led by Democrats have an average unemployment rate nearly a percentage point higher — 3.8%.
Out of the 15 states that have hit new record low unemployment rates, 11 have Republican governors and 13 have Republican-controlled legislatures. California, led by a man who wants you to move there but who just wrapped up a vacation in Montana, has the 9th highest unemployment rate among States.
It isn’t all economics. Part of Mr. Newsom’s pitch is that California still allows teachers to talk to kindergarteners about sexual preferences and critical race theory as if that is a selling point to the parents or grandparents of young children.
Finally, and perhaps most emblematically, California has the highest number of homeless — more than 161,000. Florida, with more than half the population of California, has just 27,500 homeless people.
If there is good news from all of this, it is that the ad is Mr. Newsom’s de facto announcement that he is running for president, so Democratic primary voters will have some sort of alternative — however ridiculous and painful — to renominating the teetering President Biden.
The bad news is that one of those alternatives will be Mr. Newsom, the governor of the most egregiously failed state in the union and a prime example of underperforming Democratic leadership at the state level.
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