California loses to Florida, but at least it regulates bowling
California faces a $32 billion deficit, but at least it can still regulate Skittles.
The state assembly last week approved a bill that will ban a food coloring used in popular candies. The state senate could pass a bill requiring In-N-Out Burger and other large companies to report their greenhouse gas emissions. And later this year, lawmakers will consider reparations for slavery (in a “free” state). These are the priorities.
Not a day goes by that California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) doesn’t tweet about an aspect of life in Florida that he finds personally objectionable – a restriction on transgender surgery for children, for example, or a law on banning firearms that does not include the AR-15. But Florida is overwhelming California in the economic stakes, which is why tens of thousands of Californians are moving there — at a pace that appears to have accelerated after 2020.
It was the year the two states diverged on pandemic policy, with Governor Ron DeSantis (R) opening up his state’s economy after just weeks, while Newsom waited years. Both states have emerged from the worst of the pandemic. But while California’s unemployment rate has started to deteriorate again, Florida’s unemployment rate continues to improve. By at least one economic measure, Gavin Newsom’s California is already in a recession.
California is in a recession, according to the Sahm rule.
The 3-month moving average for the state’s unemployment rate rose 0.6 percentage points from its low a year ago.
It is now 4.43%, compared to 3.83% in August 2022. https://t.co/25hQadIqLm
—Julia Pollak (@juliaonjobs) May 19, 2023
Florida wins because DeSantis — and his predecessor, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) — put economic growth ahead of all other priorities. So while California and left-leaning groups like the NAACP try to discourage travel to Florida, warning it’s too dangerous or too socially conservative, the Sunshine State is the third most popular state for Black Americans to come. by the way, and South Beach remains the gay Mecca.
One thing Florida does far better than California — and almost every other state except maybe Texas — is disaster management. Last year, DeSantis handled the devastation of Hurricane Ian so successfully that he won the support of some black Democrats. Meanwhile, Newsom escaped from California to Baja California during a killer blizzard over the weekend, enjoying the coast while people were trapped in their homes.
Newsom has also declared war on the oil and gas industry – once a mainstay of the local economy – and banned the sale of gas-powered cars after 2035. But the phasing out of fossil fuels has left the state short of energy. During an electricity crisis last year, California authorities discouraged people from charging their electric vehicles in the late afternoon and early evening. You may not be able to drive the car you are forced to own.
This winter, California residents rejoiced in the arrival of heavy rains, which defied forecasts and ended a three-year drought. But wonder turned to frustration as people watched most of that water — enough to supply the state’s needs for a decade, if stored — flowing out to sea. hasn’t built major new reservoirs in decades, and the pace of approval for desalination projects — despite Newsom’s backing — has been icy.
Meanwhile, crime is skyrocketing. Retailers in San Francisco, the city Newsom once ruled, have fled once-coveted Union Square. Radical Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón, who won in 2020 with Newsom’s endorsement and with the help of millions of dollars in George Soros spending, is said to have a backlog of 10,000 cases and boasts of the time of prison he helped convicts avoid.
But do not worry. California has Skittles under control.
Joel B. Pollak is editor of Breitbart News and host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot Sunday nights from 7-10 p.m. ET (4-7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book Neither Free Nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellow. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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