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Hello.

Thanks for joining us for sustaining us here on KLCS PBS.

I'm David Nazar.

More people are leaving the state of California than ever before and they're fleeing to places like Arizona, Nevada, Texas and Florida, for example.

Many California residents say they're searching for a new home, claiming living in California.

Well, it's just not sustainable anymore.

California critics claim local and state lawmakers who value things like climate change, global warming, dwindling fish species and coastal erosion over things like solving the homeless problem, the crime crisis, excessive government regulations, the taxes in California, the gas prices, the cost of living, and, well, the difficulties of simply trying to own a profitable bull business.

So should folks live in California or leave California sustaining California?

That's where we begin our broadcast.

The traffic, the gridlock, the homeless crisis, the crime, increasing taxes, the soaring gas prices, the soaring costs of living, municipality mismanagement, excessive regulations.

This is California, however.

So is this great weather.

Amazing beaches, unbelievable mountains, clean air, clean water, blue skies, environmentally friendly Disneyland, movie capital of the world, iconic sports franchises, iconic cities, Surf City, USA, the Golden Gate Bridge to live in California or to leave California?

That's the question.

A question being argued in the Golden State these days.

And as thousands are fleeing California, this argument seems to be divided among what else?

Party lines Many progressives, liberals, Democrats, academia, environmentalists claim this mass exodus of sorts is nonsense, simply a political talking point.

People are really not running away.

And yet many conservatives, Republicans, business owners, mom and pop shops, owners and residents in this state insist Californians are leaving in droves, claiming people can't run fast enough to escape the hell that is California.

This dispute even has journalists at odds.

Take, for example, two of Southern California's leading columnists.

I often say California is a natural wonder and a manmade disaster.

There are plenty of opportunities in California.

And if you want someone to change the world, you probably want them from California.

So just who are these two journalists with diametrically opposed opinions of California?

Well, Rick Reiff is the editor at large of the Orange County Business Journal.

He's been with the publication over 30 years.

This Pulitzer Prize winner is a household name in Orange County.

Rick wrote one of the most famous business columns in California, The O.C.

Insider.

In fact, the column was such a success.

Rick spun his O.C.

Insider column into a news and public affairs program for PBS for over a decade.

Inside O.C.

Jon Lanzer is an award winning business columnist for the Southern California News Group, which includes one of the most renowned and influential newspapers in California, the Orange County Register.

Jon has been with the Register for well over two decades, writing about all things California and all the great things that Golden State has to offer.

And Jon's Register popularity took him to the radio and TV airwaves as an occasional guest pundit on PBS and talk radio.

And so, Cal.

I'm very concerned about the high taxes in California, a state income tax highest in the nation, sales tax highest in the nation.

And, you know, think about gasoline right now.

Californians pay roughly $0.50, a little more than $0.50 a gallon just for tax.

And that's way more than almost any other state, one state.

Pennsylvania, they're about a nickel ahead of us.

But now I've read that Pennsylvania is actually thinking about rolling back or eliminating their gasoline tax.

So we'll probably be first there, too.

If you want to talk about taxes.

Basically, taxes plus or minus are pretty level across the nation.

I know you're going to go, John.

You're crazy.

No, I'm not.

You go to Texas and go look at the property taxes.

Double, triple what many Californians pay, you know, including myself, because of Prop 13.

You know, I'm paying property taxes based on 1990s values.

If I if I bought a comparable home that was half the price in Texas, my property tax would go through the roof.

Yes.

There's no income tax.

Tax is one of those things.

It's different for everybody.

Rick Reiff claims it's not just the taxes that are killing Californians.

California is losing, on average six headquarters a month.

We've lost Oracle.

Tesla just announced a move.

Hewlett Packard.

Usually they're moving to Texas.

Disney is relocating 2000 jobs from California to Florida.

And the reason?

Almost any survey, any study that's taken shows that California ranks at or near the bottom in being business friendly.

What's the big problem?

High taxes, overregulation.

Those are the two main things that are driving companies out of California.

There is a lot of pro consumer, pro-worker rules and regulations in California, and that may very well translate to be that we're anti-business.

And you can say, well, isn't that forcing employers out?

Well, I would say one thing, and it's particularly important in this era where the employee has seemed to gather enough gumption to now have a big say in salaries and workplace conditions and whatever.

Workers are really what makes, you know, a healthy economy and California protects them.

I am sorry that bosses don't like that.

And some bosses choose to go elsewhere.

And lands and their claims.

People fleeing California.

Well, that's just nonsense.

A Republican talking point.

The share of movers compared to our immense population made us the state where it was least likely for anyone to leave.

During that decade, I heard extreme calls about this exodus from California.

When it comes to the population data from the census.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

California just lost the congressional seat in the last census.

New York lost the congressional seat.

California.

Illinois.

I kind of see a pattern there of states that are known to be business unfriendly.

Who picked up seats?

Florida gained a seat.

Texas gained two seats.

Reeves says the denial of the mass migration out of California is a Democrat talking point.

And Reiff points to the fact that people fleeing the state has even affected the political landscape.

In the last ten years.

California's had a net outmigration.

That means more people moving out than moving in.

Of about 1.2 million.

So that's like that's 100,000 a year.

Net migration out of California.

And actually that pace is picking up.

It's now approaching 300,000 people a year.

So, yeah, I think that's pretty good evidence that the state is the state has a problem.

I am sure there's more than a few people in California on all political spectrums and say we don't really need more people right now.

When I often hear about the tons of people who don't like progressive California politics, I laugh.

This is no surprise that these people, I hope, are.

And too, we had a chance.

Those who don't like those politics, they had a big chance in recent months to express their views and they got them on a very narrow way.

They got to get enough signatures, which is a small slice of the state population, to qualify for a ballot recall.

And then when it came time to vote, the state said, sorry.

To find out what some average folks living in the Golden State are saying about California.

Pros and cons.

We took our cameras to the street to get various opinions from all different Californians of all different backgrounds, all different walks of life.

I think a lot of people are leaving California because honestly, the home prices are so crazy, especially people my age trying to.

I just got married, trying to people my friends trying to buy our first home.

It's pretty much impossible.

I enjoyed this place for three reasons.

Number one, because it's 365 days of the year is sun.

We have a good time.

Second, because of the people, people here, joyful, friendly.

It's very nice.

The third thing is because California, for me, is the states closest to heaven.

As a business owner, it's been really hard doing business in California.

The pricing, the rules and regulations, the fees, the licensing, all that crap is making it hard for us to survive.

We have to other places and were thinking about shutting one of them because 14 members of my family last weekend we were at the park and they all decided they're moving to Texas.

As just way too expensive here.

Democrat run is this.

It's stupid, in my opinion.

I see why anybody would leave.

Can't beat the weather here cause that's why a lot of people do stay.

I don't know.

I mean, we've looked at places in Mexico and I like Florida.

I don't know if I could handle humidity, but definitely politics are a lot better in my opinion.

The politics, it's too restrictive here.

Now we're in that actually.

On the process of leaving.

We're selling our house and we're out.

Moving to Texas.

I don't think there's anything wrong with California.

If you don't agree with the politics, you don't agree with the politics.

And I'm not saying that I agree with all of the politics.

But what I will say is I was born and raised here and like you have to kick me out.

And joining me now to discuss this further is a journalist never at a loss for words.

You just heard him in the Field report, Rick Reiff, editor at large of the Orange County Business Journal.

And also joining us is John Landowner, an icon with the Orange County Register.

Let's talk California and the environment.

Rick, first to you.

Okay.

Sure.

Yes, we we've done a great job of cleaning up cleaning up the air, although I think unleaded gasoline is probably the single biggest thing there.

We still have the dirtiest air overall in the nation.

But that's just that's something that can't be avoided given our geography and the industry.

Everyone drives a car, so on and so forth.

But, you know, the the question isn't it?

The question is, at what cost?

At what cost are we doing things that now increasingly appear to be diminishing returns.

California has the highest gas price.

Gasoline prices, the highest electric rates.

We've got rolling blackouts.

We've got a water rationing.

We've got this.

Tens of billions being spent on a green bullet train that's going nowhere.

And, you know, so in the push for the environment, some of these things are really becoming counterproductive and destructive in the most hurt poor people and working people, especially those folks who do so many of the jobs in L.A., Orange County, and they're commuting from from the Inland Empire.

And the gas prices are just killing them.

John, your take?

Well, you know, you have to be vigilant about the environment, the climate.

It doesn't go away.

The challenge is getting worse or getting steeper.

And not everything that is tried to fix these problems is going to work.

I mean, that's just the nature of being sort of particularly in California, out on the edge.

Certainly, mistakes have been made.

Certainly the cost is high.

But I think, you know, as Rick said, you know, particularly let's just start about with Southern California.

We live in this basin, which is probably not the logical place if you want to do put a, you know, industry in an economy, it would be because the, you know, the breeze off the Pacific keeps all the pollution inside our, you know, legendary mountains.

And those are not small hills, those are world class mountains.

And the big challenge is, let's say we'll start with Southern California is how to fix it.

Northern California has its own problems, one of which is sort of a plus, which is the huge agricultural industry that we have in this state, which absorbs 80% of the water that we have.

And talk about a tough debate.

Right.

I mean, this is another example of tough questions that need to be solved with adults sitting in the room and saying, what's the right answer me.

Me and I have a pretty water friendly property these days.

I ain't making a drop of difference in this water crisis we're undergoing now compared to the fact that now everyone drinks almond milk.

So we need 5 million square miles of almond trees.

You know, these are great questions.

These are really tough questions.

And unfortunately, it gets often down to either, oh, my gosh, this mistake was made.

You know, we've we've had this big fight over a pipeline that doesn't exist that would take, you know, dirty Canadian crude oil and ship it out of the country.

You know, why don't we have meaningful discussions about, you know, what's the right level of taxation, what's the right level of subsidy?

How can we incent the private sector, which is always an important part of these challenges, to do their I say the right thing.

And one of the real costs and it's it's often tough to talk about health or wealth is that if we don't fix these things, people will get sick and or die from some of these issues.

You know, I think, though, one of the one of the issues and I'm sure John and I will sooner or later you deal with this is we basically have a one party state.

We have one party that happens to be the Democratic Party that controls everything.

And I think with that, you develop a certain arrogance and an unwillingness to be flexible.

And let's take the current gasoline crisis because I want to get back that that's having a huge impact on people.

California pays that we have the highest gas in the country.

It's about a dollar and $0.72 above the average.

So we pay a buck 72 more than the average state.

Now, about $0.50 of that, a little over $0.50 of that is is a tax, second highest gas tax.

And then the rest of it is because of the special formulation of fuel, again, to make our rivers clean as possible and also then other hidden taxes on the producers.

So there's a wholesale tax that that producers pay.

And then, of course, then that goes into the price of the gasoline.

So, look, we're a buck 72 higher.

It's a crisis, right?

Right now we've got a state budget that's got this, you know, 50 billion or whatever surplus in large measure because of build back better or not build back better, but the stimulus bills and all that.

And so California is supposedly rolling in dough.

Why not say let's eliminate the gas tax right now?

Let's say you know it for for now for you know, for whatever a year, whatever.

Let's eliminate it to give people a break.

But they won't do it.

Instead, they're doing this goofy rebate thing.

And by the time the state gets done sending out the checks, who knows who's going to wind up with them.

And it's it's it's strictly, again, a party that is so powerful it can do what it wants and really doesn't even worry about public perception or the opposition or anything else.

Well, I think one reason there's one party in the state is that the critics for I've been here 35 years have said two things.

One state's going bankrupt where they have so much money, it's laughable from both sides for many issues.

But and the second thing is, is that it's a sort of narrow minded view that private sector is the answer to everything.

And both of those.

One is a prediction that has failed.

The other one is not true.

We all know that capitalism is a pretty darn good system, but it has its flaws, particularly when you get the big public policy issues that require some level of knowledge or subsidy.

So the reason the reason there's only one party here is that the other party has failed.

They have no candidate, no candidate running or at least serious candidate running for governor.

If things were so bad and there were so many great ideas, I assume someone would raise their hand and say, Hey, I want my voice heard, I will run, and that you can't put the again, this is it.

And so the latest thing the last couple of years I've heard from this losing team is, oh, basically it's all the umpires fault.

And I umpire girls lacrosse.

It's not the umpires fault.

That team has failed and needs to come up with solutions instead of criticisms.

And I have yet to hear second perfect solid ideas of how to fix this other than I've heard ideas like we should dam every river in California because.

So basically we could save water.

Somewhat impractical and or would have other ramifications.

And too, when we talk about this, quote, worthless bullet train, the the area between Bakersfield and Sacramento would be like, I don't know, the 25th largest state or something like that.

And the state of Iowa was building a bullet train between two of its employment hubs or whatever.

We wouldn't laugh at it like we do here.

Yes, I know.

Things were promised differently.

You know, again, promise.

Things change and dynamics change.

And the second point thing is we often sort of hear from our critics that we're just we ignore the central part of the state, you know, and that's where a lot of people are economically challenging the state.

Well, this is a public let's view this as a public works program that's keeping construction workers employed and whatever and view it as that and move on.

And bullet trains work, mass transit works.

The problem is we need to get all sides to discuss how we can best use these public dollars and public right of ways and all the power of government in in the most efficient manner.

And that may mean that some of the stuff doesn't work and should be stopped.

But if.

They built a bullet train in Iowa, they would do it for half the price that if.

Well, the land would be cheaper and the labor would be.

You know, granted, you know, you lay out a plausible argument for why the we have a one party state.

But the point is we have a one party state.

So how's the one party fixing it?

Republicans do have an idea on the high price of gasoline.

They're saying, do away with the gas tax.

Okay.

And and and California isn't.

But let's talk another thing about the when you have one party and you're committed to the environment.

Okay, So how about nuclear energy?

The Diablo Canyon plant is slated for closing.

We already close say I don't know if if they closed Diablo Diablo is like it's gets 9% of all the power in the state of California.

It's 15% of the clean power.

Okay.

And now I'm gratified to see that Governor Newsom has actually said he wants to reconsider closing Diablo Canyon.

But I'm saying that, you know, in the end, again, you'll have to maybe explain to me the mind of an environmentalist that they can be against nuclear.

They can be against desalination, but they love windmills and they love solar panels.

All right.

And this idea on Diablo, I mean, again, this is this is a case where the governor is going to have to defy his own party and and the coastal are he's he's begging the Coastal Commission not to close it.

So, you know, he's kind of up against his own you know, his own institutions here to try to save Diablo.

No, I'm you know, like I said, I mean, the one party system isn't perfect and certainly is a detriment many times.

You know, the loyal opposition is a word is often a worthy part of the system.

Nuclear power is certainly something that was hot.

And then we had some issues and some ugly situations, but those were 40 years ago.

I will hope that technology in the nuclear world is much better.

No different than every other bit of technology.

And I also think that many of those things need to be rethought for various reasons.

One, in the good old days, we were worried about the waste.

Now, with climate change being somewhat a real fear, we have to do that tough jungle of which is worse finding a place to put the nuclear waste versus the positives that it can bring both the society and the climate.

Those are great, you know, great discussions are no different than, you know, with the gas price.

You know, the problem with gasoline and let's not the assume or forget that crude oil prices have gone, you know, crude oil prices that were negative in the early days of the, you know, pandemic economy are now, you know, back up near 80, 9000 dollars a barrel.

And that's a key factor, too, is that either a one, where are we going to drill?

Great question.

Great debate, and more importantly, where are we going to put refineries?

I mean, thankfully, the good people of Torrance in Southern California seem to have accepted all of them.

But who else is going to have a refinery?

You know, I mean, and my my, my one of my pet peeves about it of this debate always is, is think about Arizona where they have little bit cheaper gasoline.

And every so often you have a friend on like Facebook post the picture oh I got this in Arizona.

How many refineries there in Arizona?

Zero.

How much oil production is there in Arizona?

Zero.

Why they import it for either Texas or California and maybe California.

In Texas, you turn around to Arizona and say one way or another, maybe you should be paying some of these expenses for us to have two important things.

One, the bad air.

I don't think we are getting our full share, particularly the people of Torrance in the South Bay of the Cost of bad Air.

So people in Arizona can get cheaper gas.

I mean, think about.

Yeah.

John, you make good points.

You're making good points and you're bringing up one of the right issues, which is what do we do about fossil fuels?

But again, to get back to the obsession that California policymakers have, the issue now, we're probably going to see it on the ballot is this this push for single use plastic?

We've already banned the plastic bags.

Now it's going to be single.

Use plastic.

And we're going to see pictures of of of aquatic animals wrapped up in nets and, you know, save the oceans, save the oceans.

80% of the plastic in the ocean comes from ten rivers in Asia, ten rivers in Asia, 80%, you know, who isn't putting significant amounts of plastic in California, the United States, Europe, they aren't doing it.

And yet we're going to have in California this big campaign to ban single use plastic, which drives up again, cost to consumers, cost of business.

It's it's it's crazy.

I'm you know I laugh about all this that this is always going to drive up the cost and end the world or whatever.

And my favorite example was the $15 minimum wage, how businesses couldn't afford it.

And it is sort of funny today that many businesses would love if we only had to pay $15 an hour.

You know, I, I would be a fool to say that every idea that's come out of Sacramento laugh is a good one.

I would also say that there in Sacramento is not let's be honest, Sacramento was not just lawmakers.

It's a lot of policy groups who are aligned with both sides of the aisle or, you know, there are you know, for every business group that's going to oppose that, I assume that there is some maker of the alternative product who's quietly I mean, look at this.

I mean, let's just say we need adults to get in the room and have sensible discussions about this.

Probably.

I mean, I hate paper straws.

Okay.

Can I go out there and say they are a very bad experience?

I don't like drinking out of them.

Okay.

So I would personally rather have the solution that some companies have come up with the fancy top that serves as a zipper than a paper straw.

So I will agree with you.

The paper is one of the worst ideas just from a mouthfeel sense, however, and we have plenty of those and we just need adults to get in the room outside of coming onto this whole list of crazy ideas that have come out of Sacramento that are going to end the California economy, because I think we've proven that this at least as of 2022, pretty resilient bunch of people who when put huge.

Hurdles.

In front of them somehow work around.

Rick Reif and John Landes.

And our thanks for a great interview.

Thank you.

Pleasure.

Thank you.

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Thank you.

All so much for joining us for this edition of Sustaining US here on KLCS PBS.

I'm David Nazar.