I saw this on Facebook and thought I would share it.
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To my friends, family, co-workers, fellow Americans, and others throughout the Internet, I'm going to tell you a little about life in California, ruled as we are by an oligarchy of Democrats in Sacramento. First, I'll tell you a little about myself: I'm a life-long registered Democrat and third-generation union man, a California native born, raised, and educated in San Francisco, which also Gavin Newsom's hometown.
Some facts:
Since 2011, when Gavin Newsom went to Sacramento, Democrats hold every state-wide elected office in California, including both U.S. Senators.
Except for a brief period between 1995 and 1996, Democrats have controlled both branches of the state legislature since 1970, including sixteen years with Jerry Brown as governor.
Presently, they have a two-thirds super-majority, which means Democrats can pass legislation without the least consideration for the principles, values, and preferences–even the wants and needs–of the minority.
As a result:
California has the highest gas prices in the forty-eight states, always about $1.00 above the national average. It costs $459 to register a 1997 Dodge Ram 2500. Expect to pay about $1720 every year for full-converge on your car because there are so many unlicensed and uninsured drivers in California, not to mention smash and grab thefts are not prosecuted – thieves and street people break your car window and take what they want, any time day or night. Just last week, the District Attorney of Los Angeles announced he would not prosecute people who resist arrest. This as more and more police departments are “defunded”.
Not only do we have high gas taxes and registration fees, California has the highest state sales tax in the nation. The marginal income tax rate is the nation's highest; that is on top of federal taxes. Expect to pay $15,000 a year in property taxes for a modest house. Next to New York, California. has the lowest percentage of people who own their own home.
That makes sense when you know you'll pay $1.35 million dollars to buy a 65-year-old, three-bedroom, one-bath cracker box of a house (with two-wire electricity and a single-car garage) on 1/8th acre in an ordinary, nothing-special neighborhood in Silicon Valley, right next to a freeway (Hwy 101) that has bumper-to-bumper, stop-and-go traffic 12 hours each workday such that it takes an hour and 45 minutes to drive 22.7 miles from work to home.
It's the same in other states that property taxes help fund schools, right? As a percentage of adults 25 and over, California is 49th lowest with people having a high-school diploma; only Arizona is worse. Statewide, just 32 percent of 5th-graders, 31 percent of 8th-graders and 28 percent of high school students met or exceeded standards on the California's state-wide science test. Across all grades, 14 percent of black students and 19 percent of Latino students met or exceeded standards. In 2019, before COVID, barely 50% of students tested proficient in English; under 40% in math. Scores were, as always, lower for African-Americans: 33.01% in English, 20.54% in math. California has adopted the Common Core Standards and teaching methods.
You know what bothers me the most about what California has become? It's that a working man and woman can't hope to buy a house, raise a family, pay off the mortgage in thirty years, retire and spoil their grandchildren, then leave a little something for their own kids when the parents pass on. No way a cook and a waitress can save up $110,000 for a 10% down-payment for one of those million-dollar cracker boxes in the Bay Area. It wasn't always that way.
My much older sister married a sailor right after World War II. Earl was a cook; Betty Lou waited tables in San Francisco. For extra money, Earl painted houses on weekends or moonlighted at a catering business; Betty Lou saved her tip money. Together, with a little help from the VA as a co-signer, they bought a two-bedroom house in San Francisco's Sunset District, less than a mile from the Pacific Ocean. Their two daughters shared a bedroom. In part of the basement, Earl built a small room for their son. They all shared a single bathroom. With the sweat equity, normal appreciation, and a little more savings, they bought a brand new house, the kind Malvina Reynolds sang about, in the suburbs just across the city limits south of San Francisco. The kids married and began their own families. Thanksgiving was at my sister's house; Christmas dinner at our mother's home. That is how the middle class lived in California. What happened?
For one thing, California's Democrats welcomed in millions and millions of illegal immigrants, all willing to work cheap for cash paid under the table with no taxes withheld. They kept wages low, which is good for Walmart, Target, and people hiring maids, nannies, and gardeners, just not good for working-class Americans. As bad, all those extra people drive up rents as we all compete for a place to live. That's good for landlords and speculators making money off gentrification in neighborhoods where African-Americans used to live.
Today, it's impossible for a cook and a waitress to buy a home because Democrats let people sneak across our borders – land, sea, and air – to pilfer prosperity from Americans, including African-Americans and Mexican-Americans, whose ancestors built this nation, loved it, bled for it, and paid its taxes for generations. Illegal immigrants priced Americans out of a decent job. Without a job a man isn't a man when he can't provide for his family, let alone buy a home to raise his kids.
Like I said, I'm life-long Democrat. Call me a Kennedy-Democrat. You know, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. In my lifetime I have seen many changes in the Golden State since the California-Democrats took control fifty years ago. Don't get me wrong, I'm not telling you how to think. I am telling you how life has become in California under control of the Democrats here. Just something to think about if you're deciding if to vote to recall Gavin Newsom.
