I'd guess about half of the residents of this once-Golden State have forgotten, or never knew, that we were at one time considered rather Conservative.
Yes, Fellow Patriots, since I arrived we've had the shank end of Reagan's two terms, two terms of Deukmejian, two terms of Wilson, and two terms of Ahhhhnold. That's 32 of my 50 years here. So how, one wonders, did California go off the rails in the past 14? As an example, after blowing $92 Billion Dollars over a 14 year period on a bullet train, without a single mile of track having being laid, how did this State green light such a monumentally stupid idea? Unless somebody, or several somebodies, intended to get rich as a result?
And after the Supermajority Democrat Legislature gave our BoyGuv ("Hairgod") Newsom $25 Billion Dollars to eliminate our homeless (unhoused?) problem, our homeless encampment has grown to fully 40% of the Nation's total! 40% of 1.6 million! And nobody has a reckoning as to where all that money went.
Did I mention somebody(ies) getting rich?
And how, after being fiscally prudent and notably low tax, did the Democrats who seized control of CA manage to take us over the proverbial cliff? We have the highest income taxes, the most eggregious anti-gun laws, the most electric cars along with the highest electricity rates, out-of-control housing costs, the crappiest freeways, the most unemployed and the highest gasoline prices?
In other words, we suck!
I didn't arrive at that decision hurredly. It took me nigh on to 50 years. I recall driving over the San Bernardino Mountains and into the Los Angeles Basin that sunny day back in 1975. I was moving here for a new job and couldn't have been happier. I'd finally gotten my wish: a company to offer me a job and agree to pick up the tab for the move from Missouri.
And on that day in June, '75, there were 50 gasoline refineries in California. Proven oil reserves by the geological survey places CA at 6th, right behind Alaska. We're sitting on top of the 7th richest oil and gas production areas among the states. However, a succession of anti-oil and gas, "sky-is-falling" climate doom administrations has permitted the infrastructures to go sideways. And a terrible tax and fee policy have forced many of those refineries to simply go out of business. Just throw the keys over their shoulder and head for the hills. So much so that we now rely on only 8 refineries to produce our gasoline. Resulting in the highest gas prices in the Nation.
Phillips 66 moved its operations out of CA and to Texas last year. Chevron did as well. And Valero, the USA's largest refiner, has made the decision to shell out over $One Billion Dollars to move out of Taxifornia by April, '26. To escape California's gravitational pull. Leaving us with only 7 refiners. In other words, to run to greener pastures. And any pasture is greener...
Think of it: Our largest refiner was willing to spend $One Billion in cash not to improve production, or enhance efficiencies, or find new methods, but just pack up and leave. Leave all the contracts and the contacts and the employees and an 85 year history, just to bolt CA.
They still have facilities in Louisiana, and Texas, and Pennsylvania, and the U. K., and Wales, so they'll be okay. They've shuttered their Benecia facility in Northern California. They tried to sell it but nobody would buy it. They knew it would be unprofitable if operated here in the single most awful place to do business in America. Leaving us with 8% less production, resulting in a new loss of 20% of our refined gas and oil.
While the rest of America pays an average of $2.18 for a gallon of gas, with some as low as $1.88, we pay $4.48. And to that another $0.40 cents in extra fees will be tacked on when the "Summer Blend" kicks in come June. A "Summer Blend" no other state requires, and a blend forced only to placate the global warming crowd. It's predicted we'll be paying as much as $8 or $9 Dollars a gallon by '27. In short, those of us who decided to live here and drive a car, are f**ked.
We live on the West side of the Rocky Mountains. Along with our other partners in Progressive Socialism, Oregon and Washington. We have no pipelines over the Sierra Nevada to save us. No way to rebuff the loss of refining capacity. No way to sidestep the coming train wreck. Reducing us to buying more than 40% of all our fuel from...the Bahamas? Yes, Fellow Patriots, our gas is delivered via gigondo container ships that come around the Panama Canal from the Bahamas. Forcing us to pay the freight for all that unneeded shipping and handling. We're sitting on top of a heavy load of oil and gas, but the climate doomsayers won't let us take it out of the Earth. They want solar and wind and, what? Nothing? Put everybody back on bicycles? Or horse and buggies?
The inmates are in clearly in charge of the asylum...
More than 1,000,000 highly-paid Californians have already packed up themselves and their families and ran for the exits over over the past 4 years. And with them their tax base. And the proposed "Billionaire's Tax" has caused more than $800 Billion of the $2 Trillion in wealth owned by the 200 or so Silicon Valley Boys to head Eastward. To Vegas. To Texas. And to Florida. Taking with them their tax base.
The co-founder of Google just bought a $147 million dollar spread in Miami. Meta's chairman Zuckerberg just moved to Vegas (for 184 days a year, one assumes). Spielberg just moved to New York. More than $800 Billion of our billionaires' $2 Trillion Dollars of wealth have already moved out. With more to follow.
And now the 2-dimenional, light thinkers in Sacramento have discovered that forcing everyone into electric cars has so reduced the gas taxes they don't pay at any pump, they must now find a new income source to pay for highway maintenance. Taxing us by the mile driven, they're planning. Six and one-half cents a mile, they say. Are these people smoking some of those anti-God cigarettes? Would that not necessarily create another expensive bureaucratic behemoth to worm its way into our lives? Some $100,000 a year guy coming to our house in a Tesla to check our odometers so as to verify the mileage we put on our tax returns?
In addtion to being raped at the gas pumps, who do you think will be forced to pony up more taxes that these escapees from that asylum won't now be paying? They were writing checks for more than 51% of Taxifornia's total income taxes before the CPDLW (Commie Pinko Dummass Liberal Weenies) decided to finally murder the Golden Goose. The heavy hitters are gone. The future is known. We are a failed enterprize.
I need to buy gas today. I'll be heading for my friendly "Sam's" cheepass gas pumps to open my wallet. One almost needs a "Heloc" or a 2nd mortgage to buy a full tank of fuel in Taxifornia these days. I recall a gas war between Phillips and Standard Oil back when I was young. We paid $0.19 cents a gallon. And we burned it up with glee! We got it pumped for us by an old guy in a uniform, who also cleaned our windshields, checked our tire pressures and our oil levels, took our money and delivered our change. And then wished us a blessed day on our way out, while we made those soothing little "ding-ding" noises as we ran over the hoses. Without our ever having to lift our asses out of the driver's seat.
I think I'll just go back to bed, assume the prenatal position, bring the covers up over my nose and hope to dream about something else. Anything else.
Are you feeling as I am? Like the sheep who's been shorn a bit too often?
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