People once fled New York State for California. And bragged about it. drain

Now they’re moving away. (Granted, not to New York, where all our leaves are brown, still. Also covered with a couple feet of snow. And chilled down to a cozy 4 degrees this morning.)

The number of people leaving California for another state outstripped the number moving in from another state during the year ending on July 1, 2008. California lost a net total of 144,000 people during that period — more than any other state, according to census estimates. That is about equal to the population of Syracuse, N.Y.

The state with the next-highest net loss through migration between states was New York, which lost just over 126,000 residents.

California’s loss is extremely small in a state of 38 million. And, in fact, the state’s population continues to increase overall because of births and immigration, legal and illegal. But it is the fourth consecutive year that more residents decamped from California for other states than arrived here from within the U.S.

When the article moves on to answer the burning question of “why,” it falls back on the usual dreamy litany. Unemployment. High foreclosure rate. Personal income flat.

Well, yeah. Those are the immediate causes. But I also agree with Shannon Love that the real issue is the state’s fiscal policy:

California has followed the grim path of the Great Lakes states.

[T]hose states where [sic] once the industrial dynamo for the entire Earth, yet they destroyed that enormous economic dominance by political policies hostile to economic creativity . . .

It seems that in post-New Deal America, economic and civil success sow their own seeds of destruction. When things are going good, socialist experimentation seems harmless. A booming economy can pay for increased government spending and an ever-increasing scope of government power. Eventually, however, socialism strangles the economic engine and destroys civil society.

In 2006, California held the number 8 slot in the list of states with highest tax revenues per capita. (New York was #3.)

What have they done with all those riches?

Does running California really cost $1800 more per person than running New Hampshire?

Of course not. At least, it shouldn’t.

America is wasting its assets by funneling our money through political machines that add ZERO value.

California is our canary in the gold mine . . .

(P.S. California’s population is still growing, incidentally, thanks to the birthrate etc. It’s the people who can voluntarily move who are leaving. The babies are staying put for now.)