Yep, Californios, it is worsening. The troubling trends continue. Here’s the latest.
Tomorrow, July 1, the cost of getting from point A to point B in California will increase. The state’s gas tax rises from 59.6 cents per gallon to 61.2. More is in the offing each year for the foreseeable future. Also, the state’s latest tightening of its low-carbon fuel standard will be slamming drivers on the same day adding up to 15 cents to each gallon. Coupled with the garroting of California’s domestic oil production and the loss of oil refineries (Valero, Philips 66 in Benicia by next year), Californios could be looking at sticker shock at the pump – $8-per-gallon in 18 months is a real possibility.
Keep in mind that this is a popularly elected government in veto-proof numbers. Ruin is quite popular in the state.
Like Stalin’s prosecutor at the show trials, the state’s apparatchiks are impervious to the pain they are causing. They are zealots to the revolution. According to the San Joaquin Valley Sun, California Air Resources Board Chair Liane Randolph said in recent testimony before the Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee, “’We don’t analyze a retail cost …. [CARB’s analysis] does not identify specific costs to specific consumers ….’” (see #1)
Through what can only be described as Soviet-style central planning, the one-party state is constructing environmentalism’s utopia – like Lenin, or Mao, or Castro did Marx’s – no matter the impracticality or the economic bleeding of its people. Gas prices are just one canary in the mine. There’s a whole slew of other symptoms of the rotting corpse. Some are toxic policies and some are pure stats.
In US News and World Report’s state rankings, California is last in affordability, “47th in employment, 47th in energy infrastructure, 46th in air and water quality, 45th in growth, 42nd in public safety, 42nd in short-term fiscal stability, and 37th in K–12 education.” (see #2) The ruling party is running the state into the ground.
This is a high-tax state, dahhhh! The Tax Foundation places the state near the bottom (48th) in its State Tax Competitiveness Index (see #3). My gosh, how can anyone afford to live there?! This is a financially and personally deadly utopia.
If you’re looking for a place to retire, don’t make it California. According to BankRate’s annual analysis, only three other states are worse than the “golden state” (47th), while, adding insult to injury, you are still spry enough not to have your kids take away your car keys and occasionally have to roll up to a gas pump in the state.
Indeed, driving is increasingly a perilous adventure in the state. It is at the bottom in the quality of its roads, fifth-worst (see #4). While on those washboards, you will be facing collectively some of the worst drivers, the third-worst, and the second-worst accident and drunk driving rates in the country. No wonder its donkey-party insurance market is in tatters.
Putting up with all that will leave you and your kids exposed to some of the worst cultural influences on the planet. The ruling party’s theoreticians have embedded transgenderism and the mission statement of the LGBTQ+ Human Rights Campaign into elementary school instruction. Identity politics, rooted in neo-Marxist theory, was getting set to become a high school graduation requirement in a new “ethnic studies” course, till Donald Trump and AG Pam Bondi began to enforce recent Supreme Court decisions banning the noxious bunkum of “racism to fight racism”. With state encouragement, and the heightened potential of social contagion of too many kids on too many “smart” phones, you might find your kid transitioning without you even knowing about it, all under the protective wing of your kid’s guidance counselor.
For your daughters, highly sexualized boys could be sharing a bathroom, locker room, or competing with them. The whole scene is turning into a monstrous social sewer. No wonder the state’s only growth industry is the outward-bounded moving trade. So says U-Haul (see #6).
People aren’t stupid, except possibly for a critical mass of the state’s electorate, or so it seems. It can’t last. Even for the most die-hard California new age Democrat neo-socialist, civilizational decline can’t be a pleasant experience. Till that realization becomes a reality, you-the-sane have two options: get out like so many others or just continue to swim around in the septic tank. Simple.
RogerG
Sources:
1. “Bains calls for CARB chief to step down”, Daniel Gligich, San Joaquin Valley Sun, 5/30/2025, at https://sjvsun.com/news/politics/bains-calls-for-carb-chief-to-step-down/
2. Thanks to Jim Geraghty for the summary at “‘No One Is Incredibly Pumped’ About Kamala Harris Running for Governor”, National Review, 6/30/2025, at https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/no-one-is-incredibly-pumped-about-kamala-harris-running-for-governor/. I pirated many of the stats from him. For the USNWR report, “California” at https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/california.
3. “Taxes in California: California Tax Rates, Collections, and Burdens” at https://taxfoundation.org/location/california/
4. See “U.S. States With the Worst Roads”, Jonathan Jones, Construction Coverage, 4/30/2025, at https://constructioncoverage.com/research/states-with-the-worst-roads. Also “California has some of the worst roads in the nation, new study says. Where does it rank?”, Jaqueline Pinedo, Sacramento Bee, 4/10/2024, at https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article287533375.html.
5. “The Numbers Don’t Lie: California Ranks Among the Worst Drivers in the U.S.”, Eugene Bruno, Eugene Bruno and Associates, 12/13/2024, at https://sdlawyers.com/the-numbers-dont-lie-california-ranks-among-the-worst-drivers-in-the-u-s/.
6. “California ranks last in growth for fifth consecutive year, U-Haul says”, 1/7/2025, at https://www.kdrv.com/news/regional/california-ranks-last-in-growth-for-fifth-consecutive-year-u-haul-says/article_31927000-6e72-5e25-b994-5951a1b1adf1.html.