People move for more freedom. States that have more freedom attract more businesses, more jobs and more workers.

According to the John Locke Foundation, freedom is based on fiscal policy, which measures taxes and budgetary measures, and generates 50 percent of a state’s score. Twenty percent each goes to education and to regulatory policies, and 10 percent to health care policy.

The ‘least free’ state according to the John Locke Foundation is New York, closely followed by California, then New Jersey, West Virginia, and Kentucky.

This would explain why California has a record number of residents who left the Golden State for other states during the last decade, according to new tax return data from the Internal Revenue Service. “About 5 million Californians left between 2004 and 2013,” the Sacramento Bee reported. “Roughly 3.9 million people came here from other states during that period, for a net population loss of more than 1 million people.”

The IRS said this also resulted in a net… Read More

Think this title evokes a strange comparison? It is no stranger than Gov. Jerry Brown’s press conference Wednesday with legislative leaders admitting defeat of a measure where they sought to cut your gas usage by half. Judge for yourself – here’s the actual quote:

“We look at the Middle East and see the desperate migrants trying to escape the hell of the Middle East wars, and are now inundating Europe,” Brown said. “We will get a foretaste of what climate change will mean, not just to Europe, but to California… mass migrations, untold suffering, rising sea levels, extreme events. Now I know that’s big, it’s not insiderism, it’s not tomorrow, but it’s… Read More

On Monday, Assemblyman Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, Sen. Andy Vidak, R-Hanford, and more than 20 other Republican lawmakers announced the introduction of theAffordable Gas for California Families Act,legislation to exempt transportation fuels and natural gas from the California Air Resource Board’scap-and-trade program.

“We struck a nerve!” Patterson told me. Patterson said he was surprised at the media response, and how many in the media did not know the gas tax is starting Jan. 1 – next month.

Patterson is working on issues like… Read More