Californians Holding on by a Tread
And the Newsom administration keeps tightening the screws while people vote with their feet.
The California Energy Commission just dusted off a 23-year-old law to restrict which replacement tires you can buy. Commissioner Nancy Skinner, a former state senator with zero energy background appointed by Governor Newsom for her loyalty, helped push it through. She is the same lawmaker who helped make theft under $950 a misdemeanor.
Now the state limits tire choices in the name of efficiency and lower fuel costs.
California already imposes some of the highest gas taxes and regulatory costs in the country. Those policies drive prices far above the national average. Officials then point to the high prices they created and use them to justify still more rules. Electric vehicles are heavy and burn through tires faster than gas cars. As the state forces more people into EVs, the same officials find new ways to raise the cost of keeping those cars on the road. It’s the arsonist-firefighter scenario: light the fire, then claim credit for fighting it. In their own bills, California politicians have celebrated high gas prices for boosting public transit ridership.
The pain is the point.
Now comes another idea from Sacramento. AB 1421 would create a system that charges drivers based on miles driven. At 6 cents per mile, someone driving 15,000 miles a year would pay $900. That hits commuters, parents taking kids to school and practice, nurses, contractors, and small business owners hardest. Working families who cannot afford to live close to their jobs would pay more just to get to work. The bill does not solve an under-taxation problem. California does not have an affordability crisis because people are not taxed enough.
At the same time, Democrats advanced AB 2108, a bill that would expand diversion programs for retail theft when it can be framed as a “crime of necessity and poverty.” Nearly every Democrat voted for the version that reached the state senate. After voters passed Proposition 36 to toughen penalties for repeat theft and drug crimes, Sacramento is already looking for ways around it. Their message is clear: if you steal and you claim poverty, the system should treat you more gently. Ordinary people who play by the rules get to watch stores lock up merchandise and raise prices to cover the losses.
Because of Sacramento and local government far-left policies, California leads the nation in net domestic migration loss. Hundreds of thousands of residents have left for states with lower costs and fewer barriers in recent years. Population numbers have stalled or dipped slightly. Business starts lag too. California is the most regulated state in America by a wide margin. We have roughly 420,000 regulations, more than 120,000 above the next highest state, New York. The average business faces far more “shall,” “must,” and “prohibited” requirements here than anywhere else. A Public Policy Institute of California report confirms the state is an extreme outlier on these constraints, especially in environment, health, and commerce. States with heavier constraint loads tend to see fewer new businesses form.
As of early 2024, California recorded the nation’s highest unemployment rate, lowest job growth, lowest income growth, and highest poverty rate. The state budget faces ballooning deficits. Chief Executive magazine ranked it the worst state in America to do business for the tenth year in a row. For a long time, California’s economy soared because the foundations of growth were solid. Those foundations have been steadily undermined by the same policies that raise costs, limit choices, and soften accountability for crime.
People are leaving, yet the Democrats “housing crisis” continues. New housing units have been added in recent years, huge condo developments and “affordable” housing are popping up everywhere you look. Did everyone take their housing with them when they moved? Who are they building all the housing for? Housing is expensive and scarce due to their regulations and sanctuary policies.
Border towns in Nevada already joke about opening shops that sell the tires, lawn equipment, and light bulbs California makes harder or illegal to buy. The pattern is the same: more rules, higher costs on driving, fewer new businesses, softer treatment of property crime, and a steady outflow of people who can afford to leave.
Why do legislators and the governor keep adding layers of control and new ways to charge drivers when the results are so plain? Who benefits when everyday goods and the ability to drive become more expensive? If the goal is affordability and opportunity, why does every major policy choice point the other direction? And if hundreds of thousands of residents can leave without taking the housing stock with them, what does that say about the real drivers of the shortage?
California’s leaders act as if the state’s problems are the result of mysterious forces beyond their control. The record shows otherwise. The constraints, the costs, the mileage schemes, and the crime policies are choices. People are responding to those choices by leaving, their family trees uprooted and planted in other states, their businesses enriching other communities.
California is left to those who are dependent on government subsidies and/or government employment.
That is not a recipe for future success.
Elections matter.
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California is a fountain of awful policies produced by crooked and deluded “ progressive” politicians like Newscum, Limon, Hart, Becerra, Carbajal, Capps, yada yada.
Those of us who shake our heads over the non stop legislative sewage coming out of the cloaca maxima ( Latin for sewer) known as the State Legislature are never surprised at the latest insanity. Leaving paradise ( lost ) for hot sticky states should not be the only alternative. Please get involved in the debate over the folly of the path we are on, and support good candidates like Steve Hilton and Bob Smith!
They are criminals. Besides over regulations and iver taxing every California,they launder our money to Newsoms wife and orher NGOs run by their friends.
The just passed the Nick Shirley Law so reporters will be fined if the discover illegal immigrant crime.
Maybe look into the company who manufacturers the tires that we can use. Probably a buddy of someone in Sacramento.
Feds are now putting the brakes on loans or direct deposits at Banks for non citizens.
That could possibly help our housing problem.