Prøve GULL - Gratis

California Is Taxing Itself to Death

Reason magazine

|

November 2023

FOR DECADES, CALIFORNIA has been a desirable destination for Americans lured by the promise of riches, stardom, or at least a good place to surf.

- Eric Boehm

California Is Taxing Itself to Death

That dream is over for an estimated 343,000 Californians who fled the state between July 2021 and July 2022, according to data from the Census Bureau. That marks the third consecutive year that California has seen a net decline in population.

Those heading out of state tend to be wealthier residents, and their exit threatens to blow a hole in the state’s finances. California lost about $343 million in tax revenue during 2021 due to out-migration, according to a study from the online real estate firm MyEListing.com. The company says “California’s high personal income tax rates seem discouraging for many high-wealth individuals.”

FLERE HISTORIER FRA Reason magazine

Reason magazine

Reason magazine

Cracks in the Map

THE IDEA OF carving out territorial exceptions to, or escape zones from, the hand of the nation-state has long captured the imagination of free market enthusiasts. In the 1990s, I was involved in several organizations devoted to the idea, and I witnessed the movement's gradual shift from a pipe dream of libertarian theorists to something attracting serious interest, and investment capital, from entrepreneurs, as libertarian-oriented free ports, special economic zones, charter cities, and even floating maritime cities (seasteads), began to look more politically possible. In 1993, my “free nation” group was meeting in a local North Carolina hotel; by 2011, I was sipping cocktails at a rather swankier “free cities” conference on the resort island of Roatán, Honduras—which, not coincidentally, today boasts its own charter city, Próspera.

time to read

5 mins

October 2025

Reason magazine

Reason magazine

DOGE BEFORE DOGE

BEFORE TRUMP HAD ELON MUSK, NIXON HAD HOWARD PHILLIPS.

time to read

17 mins

October 2025

Reason magazine

Reason magazine

Poland Climbs, Hungary Slips

LOOKING BACK ON his career as one of Poland's most prominent economists and political leaders, Leszek Balcerowicz offered a succinct lesson for policymakers everywhere.

time to read

3 mins

October 2025

Reason magazine

Reason magazine

PUTIN AND THE D-WORD

IN DONALD TRUMP'S VIEW, VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY IS A \"DICTATOR,\" BUT VLADIMIR PUTIN ISN'T.

time to read

17 mins

October 2025

Reason magazine

Reason magazine

EDUCATING THE WORLD'S BEST AND BRIGHTEST— THEN SHOWING THEM THE DOOR

AMERICA'S STATUS AS A TOP DESTINATION FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS IS AT RISK.

time to read

12 mins

October 2025

Reason magazine

Reason magazine

WHY EUROPEANS HAVE LESS

EUROPE IS POOR BECAUSE IT CHOOSES TO BE.

time to read

15 mins

October 2025

Reason magazine

Reason magazine

Let Prisoners Work for Themselves

For nearly two decades, some Puerto Rican prisons allowed a very different sort of prison labor.

time to read

3 mins

October 2025

Reason magazine

What's Special About the Fed?

IN HIS SECOND term, President Donald Trump has tried to fire numerous federal officials, with varying degrees of success. Courts have occasionally intervened, raising questions about the extent of the president's power to terminate employees without cause and which agencies he can and cannot touch. But Supreme Court justices seem unanimous in their belief that the Federal Reserve is its own creature.

time to read

2 mins

October 2025

Reason magazine

Reason magazine

Strangling AI, One State at a Time

JUST HOURS BEFORE its passage, the Senate version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) cut a proposed moratorium on states enforcing their own AI regulations. Though some regard this as a win for federalism, others argue that the current patchwork represents an abdication of the federal government's jurisdiction over interstate commerce, permits excessive compliance costs to be imposed on the American AI industry, and may ultimately sacrifice the U.S. lead in the field to geopolitical adversaries.

time to read

1 mins

October 2025

Reason magazine

Reason magazine

A Spy's Eye View

NOT ALL OF James Bond's gadgets were fictional. In the 1969 movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Bond uses a strange-looking metal square to photograph supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s secret plans. The same metal square appears in the 2013 season of the Cold War-themed show The Americans, when an FBI asset is sent to copy documents in the Soviet Embassy.

time to read

3 mins

October 2025

Translate

Share

-
+

Change font size