The full brunt of progressive policies is being felt in states that consistently elect Democrats. Residents now pay the most taxes and suffer the highest rate of homelessness. The dystopia of liberal rule stands in stark contrast to the rosy picture the left painted when bamboozling voters.
Considered one of the bluest of the blue states, California levels the most crushing taxes on citizens in the nation. Although the left-leaning media will only print that “California ranks ‘among’ the highest taxed states,” Democrats pay the top income tax. Residents have to pony up 12.3 percent annually. And the state tacks on another 1 percent if you happen to make more than $1 million. Clearing a cool Mill may seem like wealth to people living in many parts of the country. But, to put that in context of the high cost of living in the West Coast state, a family earning anything less than $84,000 is considered “low income.” Single people earning less than $58,000 rank among the poor as well.
“When you tell somebody that’s making $70,000 that they’re low income, they go, ‘What? That’s low income?’ Unfortunately, that’s what comes from living in a high-cost county,” Kennedy Commission director Cesar Covarrubias said. “That makes it difficult for working families at all levels.”
Take-home pay from working at Starbucks or hard manual labor is unlikely to put residents in the wealth bracket. The median income in the Golden State stood at about $63,783 in 2018, right on the cusp of low-income.
Wealthy Californians have fled to states such as Texas that do not have a personal income tax to save 13.3 percent of their money. That problem has caused Democrats to implement a series of other taxes. The state already has the highest retail sales tax in the nation at more than 7 percent. High tax New York ranks among the worst when combing the sales tax and income tax, tallying more than 12.7 percent of residents’ salaries each year.
In 2017, the California gas tax increased to the tune of $5 billion annually. And, a higher tax on car ownership was levied. The state has consistently looked for ways to take more money out of residents’ pockets. What is astonishing is the fact that Democrats are currently pushing to raise taxes in small communities.
Members of the California General Assembly have been frustrated they cannot get the 66 percent vote needed to implement laws allowing small, Democrat-run communities to ramp up taxes further. Conservatives have just enough votes to prevent the left from changing existing laws to allow more property taxes to fund infrastructure projects. Basically, the revenue has already been squandered at the state level, and Democrats are looking for a new pocket to pick.
With all their progressive and socialist policy ideas, the result has been equivalent to what has been reported coming out of Third World countries such as Venezuela. Unskilled workers and residents without college degrees are not only struggling to get above low-income status, they cannot earn enough to find affordable housing. Homelessness topped 129,000 people in the Golden State in 2018. And, another 89,000 were considered “unsheltered.” On the national level, upwards of 553,000 people experience homelessness on a given night. Nearly half are on the streets in California, followed by almost 100,000 in New York.
To emphasize how extreme homelessness has become in Democrat strongholds such as Los Angeles, officials have urged FEMA to intervene over fear that street conditions could spark a modern-day plague. Human feces cover streets, garbage is strewn about, the rat population has spiked, and Rev. Andy Bales of Union Mission church reportedly contracted a flesh-eating bacterium that took his lower leg while attending to the homeless in L.A.’s skid row.
“We’ve been crying out for a National Guard-like response,” Rev. Bales said. “We are seeing behaviors from our guests that I’ve never seen in 33 years.”
The response by liberals has been consistent with other failed policies. In L.A., Democrats voted to build a $1.2 billion housing complex for the homeless in 2016.
“It was supposed to build 10,000 units but in truth will create half that because each one costs $527,000 to $700,000,” Rev. Bales added. “They will take ten years to build, at which point 44,000 lives will have been destroyed by living on the street.”
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that high taxes for pie-in-the-sky idealistic policies cause unsustainable living conditions for everyday people. One need only look at the chaos in socialist Venezuela, or better yet, California and New York.
