Your Tax Dollars At Work
Hugh Hewitt > Blog
Tuesday, May 5, 2026
California has one of the highest tax burdens in the nation. It also has one of the biggest economies in the world. That tax burden combined with that economy should be producing a massive pool of money. And yet each year, California finds itself having to overcome a deficit situation – usually on paper only. Anyone with any sense would have to conclude California has a spending problem. Gee, how could that be?
For starters they add cost to waste of money projects for no good reason:
California taxpayers may be on the hook for a roughly $1 billion detour project as part of the state’s new high-speed rail construction meant to prevent disruption of a monument honoring the disgraced labor leader Cesar Chavez.
More than a decade after it opened, an Obama-era taxpayer-backed “clean energy” solar plant in California still burns fossil fuels and kills thousands of birds each year….
Federal researchers and monitoring reports have documented thousands of birds being killed after flying through the plant’s concentrated solar rays — a phenomenon known as “solar flux.”
The plant also relies on natural gas to start up each day – producing tens of thousands of metric tons of carbon dioxide annually – an amount comparable to the energy use of thousands of homes, raising questions about how “clean” the facility really is.
California has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation. But they have taxpayer money to help primarily illegal immigrants get day labor jobs:
Taxpayer funded pro-illegal immigration groups are demanding millions of dollars from LA residents to help them attack ICE and fund day laborer hubs near Home Depot sites.
The groups are already getting $1-million-a-year from LA City Council, and are now demanding a $2-million-a-year funding increase to help them fight against ICE operations and maintain buildings outside the hardware stores.
This is satire, but the numbers aren’t:
The homeless of California have achieved a final and decisive victory in Governor Gavin Newsom’s fight against homelessness.
Despite Newsom spending $24 billion on the seven-year war effort, the homeless have steadily conquered more territory, expanding their strongholds in every major city.
“Veni, vidi, vici. The state is ours,” said homeless encampment leader Darren “Two-Tents” Willis. “Already, we have attained our most important objectives in this fight: free drugs, free needles, and unfettered sidewalk access for public defecation. We continue to strengthen our strategic position every day.”
They destroy people’s livelihoods pretty much without explanation:
Mark Collins has run Evergreen Wholesale, a 230-acre plant nursery in San Diego, for over 40 years. But this year, he almost had to shut it down after employees from the state agriculture department destroyed more than 32,000 of his citrus plants because of an anti-pest regulation….
In November 2023, the CDFA declared a quarantine zone based on an “undisclosed” finding of huanglongbing disease about five miles away, according to Collins’ lawsuit. That quarantine zone touched one corner of his farm, where Collins says there were no citrus trees.
“The threat to suspend State Farm General’s ability to serve customers over primarily administrative and procedural errors is a reckless, politically motivated attack that could ultimately cripple California’s homeowners insurance market,” the insurance giant, which insures over a million in California, said.
In light of all that, do we find this shocking:
They’re hopping on the Chattanooga Choo Choo!
Blue state residents fleeing their high-tax homes for greener pastures have gobbled up about a third of the homes in a stunning new development just outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee — where there’s no state income tax.
Buyers from California, Illinois, New York and New Jersey have bought a huge chunk of the 2,200 homes that have already been made available in River Gorge Ranch, according to developers.
I certainly don’t, but then I kind of lead the wave six years ago.
I will say this, the tax burden in California would be bearable if it produced good things. But primarily it produces failure, incompetence and in some cases purposeful destruction. Pay all those taxes and get all that garbage. And worst of all they don’t learn. Like the State Farm thing, they just spend more to cover up their mistakes.
