Hanson on California: The picture is bleak

Hanson writes about a state that is over-taxed and over-regulated, with an infrastructure that has been misappropriated by environmentalists.  He writes: “Those who had stopped the building of more unnatural dams – a green movement birthed among the opulence of Northern California that sought exemption from the ramifications of its own ideology – now wanted infrastructure to store the water necessary for its own dreams of replenishing salmon in the rivers.”

Hanson also addresses the mass exodus from California. I see this as an enormous problem, as people from California (and other high-tax blue states) move into red or purple states, shifting the political balance and making it increasingly difficult for conservatives to overcome a Democratic electoral college advantage that just keeps growing.

The impact of these policies has been enormous. The agricultural heart of the state has dried up, the middle-class has fled to more favorable tax environments, and new, mostly illegal immigrants – who come in droves due to the open borders policies of the state’s elites -- find fewer and fewer opportunities to rise out of their condition. However, the elites are mostly ensconced in affluent corridors and immune to the negative effects of their ideas………..

The review ends with this overview:

Hanson’s book is an excellent primer for Californians and Americans in general to discover what went wrong in a state with almost unlimited natural and geographical advantages. It is a dissection of the rapid descent of the Golden State that stood above all others in power, wealth, and prestige–to a national laughingstock in three generations.

If you’d like to purchase Hanson’s book, here’s a link to Amazon, where the book appears to be sold in Kindle format only.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/12/hanson_on_california_the_picture_is_bleak.html#ixzz3tx9VERJv
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