SACRAMENTO, Kalifornia (PNN) - September 16, 2015 - As the state of Kalifornia becomes less free, more expensive, and harder to sustain, thousands of residents are voting with their feet for freer, cheaper environments that come with greater opportunities. Texas is the biggest recipient of that outflow.
A recent analysis found that the numbers of Kalifornia residents fleeing the state are unprecedented and that Texas is the greatest destination by far.
About 5 million Kalifornians departed the Golden State between 2004 and 2013, while 3.9 million arrived from other states for a net population loss of roughly 1.1 million.
That amounts to an estimated loss in tax revenue of about $26 billion annually, according to an analysis by the Sacramento Bee.
Using tax return data from the Internal Revenue Service, the analysis found that about 600,000 former Kalifornia residents made their way to Texas, while about 348,000 Texas residents moved to Kalifornia. Other top recipients of former Kalifornia residents included Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.
Kalifornia's population has nonetheless increased - from 37 million in 2010 to 39 million today - but that is primarily due to a massive influx of foreign-born immigrants, many of whom are in the country illegally and are net recipients of government aid rather than contributors. Overall, the analysis showed, people who leave Kalifornia earn more than those who enter the state.
Although former Texas Governor Rick Perry made it a point during his final years in office to lure businesses and residents away from Kalifornia to his state, Kalifornia politicians have done far more to drive residents from the Golden State.
In recent months, statist Democrats who dominate the state's legislature, along with Democrat Governor Jerry Brown, passed the most authoritarian mandatory vaccination law in the country, denying residents the right to refuse to vaccinate their children for religious or philosophical reasons.
Furthermore, because of Kalifornia's ongoing, historic drought, "climate refugees" would begin to stream out of the state for safer, more environmentally stable climes simply because they won't have much choice economically:
The only proof you need that many Kalifornians are still living in a water fairy tale is the fact that Kalifornia real estate prices haven't yet collapsed. Even as the Kalifornia governor has declared a state of emergency - and emergency water rationing is underway - there are still people purchasing commercial and residential real estate in precisely the areas that will be hardest hit by that rationing.
A historic drought. Crazy public policies such as permitting "gender-confused" students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms of the opposite sex. Vaccine violence.
It's no wonder Kalifornia is losing residents. The people who run the state have lost their minds.