The Most Powerful Machine in America

By Carmen K. Sisson @Adobe Stock

Destroying the Middle Class

In what Ed Ring calls a quasi-feudal system, with the entire population divided into aristocrats and serfs., California heads the list. The Golden State has declared war on its middle class. Abetting that war are special interests controlling the state, who are doing everything possible to model this punitive economic model on the rest of America. The moral justification for this destruction is twofold: 1. To cope with the “climate emergency” and 2. To achieve social equality.

For most of the country, Trump II has slowed the march of neo-feudalism.  How about California? The hostile state marches relentlessly forward, explains Mr. Ring:

If you’re extremely wealthy, California’s abusive cost of living is not a big concern, and you stay for the scenic beauty and abundant sunshine. If you’re extremely poor, you stay because California’s taxpayer-funded assistance programs—financial aid, food assistance, healthcare, and other support services—offer a lifestyle orders of magnitude better than what you may have previously endured in the barrios of Tegucigalpa or the suburbios of Maputo. 

15 Years of Mass Exodus 

… if you’re not rich, and you’re not poor, but just work, pay taxes, and pay for everything you need with after-tax earnings and without government assistance, California is a hostile environment. The numbers on out-migration are unequivocal. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an astonishing 8.5 million people have moved out of California since 2010. In 2023 alone, the last full year for which estimates are available, 690,000 people left. In 2022, 818,000; in 2021, 841,000. No other state has sustained anywhere near this 15 years of unrelenting mass exodus.

Headlines cry that residents are “leaving.” Not so, counters Mr. Ring. “Driven out” better sums it up:

The latest reported cost of a home in California averages nearly $788,000 compared to $361,000 in the rest of the U.S. The price for a gallon of gasoline in California is roughly $5.00 compared to $3.00 nationwide. With refineries quitting production in California thanks to ridiculous and escalating regulatory harassment by state agencies, the price of gasoline is only going to rise. As for residential electricity rates, consumers in California have to pay around $0.30 per kilowatt-hour, a rate that is twice the national average.

No New News Here

Do the math: It costs a lot to live in California.

… due to restrictions placed on housing and pretty much any enabling energy or water infrastructure by extreme environmentalists and the special interests that support them. …

• Homes cost twice as much
• Gasoline costs nearly 60 percent more
• Electricity costs twice as much
• Double the cost of real estate and energy, and you double the cost of everything that needs real estate and energy to be produced.

A Spending Spree 

The California state legislature showers freebies on residents who can’t afford the overpriced necessities – a neat stunt that works.

Deny people the ability to make a living, blame a scapegoat (climate change, greedy corporations, billionaires, racism), and then distribute free stuff from the government in exchange for votes.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed a 2025-26 state budget of $322 billion, which equates to approximately $8,173 per resident.

… in 2011, in 2024 dollars, total state spending was only $4,696 per resident.

What got better with the increase? Schools? Crime rates? Homelessness? Affordability? Not an iota better, according to Mr. Ring. A case could be made that they have all gotten worse.

Whataboutism

The middle class, not yet poor enough, shoulders the responsibility. The middle class pays higher taxes to support the swollen state.

The marginal withholding rate for the State of California:

• 3% is the holding on $140,000+ income.
• Anything over $111,732 is taxed at 8.0%.
• Federal tax is 22% on any income over $94,300.
• Add Social Security and Medicare (for which an independent contractor pays the employee and the employer share) to get another whopping 15.3 %

In all, the government taxes 46.6% of those last hard-earned dollars, reports Mr. Ring. And yes, the feds take most of it (instead of merely wasting hundreds of billions, the federal government wastes trillions of dollars).

Residents of other states are not subjected to California’s punitive cost of living.

… in states with low or minimal state income taxes, the hit for federal income tax and Social Security/Medicare would be 37%, little more than a third of marginal earnings instead of nearly half.

Even through hard work, plus an additional blessing of being very lucky, earning a six-figure income is not easy.

The average annual salary in California is $68,917. For people making that amount of money, owning a home is an impossible dream. Just paying for gasoline and electricity is a hardship.

An Inexcusable Betrayal

In American Greatness, Edward Ring calls it an unforgivable betrayal to have inflicted these costs on California residents.

The state is run by a coalition of public sector unions, allied with environmentalist billionaires and the nonprofit advocacy groups they fund, and the monopolistic corporations that thrive in over-regulated environments that smaller competitors can’t survive. These aligned special interests pour billions into backing politicians who do what they’re told. The result is a bloated public sector and “green” industries profiting off of high prices and a captive market. And the established media—increasingly populated with indoctrinated youths straight out of union-controlled universities—marches in lockstep with this corrupt establishment, saying all the right things and controlling the narrative.

With 40% of the electorate routinely voting against candidates of the one-party Democrat machine, it is hard to blame voters for the predicament California is in.

A Wakeup Call

Americans in the rest of the country need to recognize the not necessarily obvious threat California poses, warns Mr. Ring.

The special interests running the state don’t merely deflect accountability by blaming the hardship they’ve engineered on climate and racism.

California’s Special interest groups also have conned voters into thinking that these special interests fight against each other, when in fact they are united.

Public sector unions, billionaire-backed NGOs, and monopolistic corporations are not antagonists. These aligned groups share the same agenda, and they work together. To serve each of their varied interests, they intend to destroy the middle class in this country.