When I left the Washington Beltway in 1987 to drive west and work for the Orange County Register, friends enthused, “You’ll really like In-N-Out Burgers.” Double-Doubles became my favorite. Nowadays I’m on low-carb, so it’s protein-style, no tomato, extra mustard.
Owner Lynsi Snyder announcing earlier this month she’s moving to Franklin, Tennessee, near the company’s new Eastern Territory office. Corporate HQ will remain in California and most of its restaurants will still be here.
“There’s a lot of great things about California, but raising a family is not easy here,” she told podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey. “Doing business is not easy here.” SFGate reported sarcastic online retorts, such as, “Must have been soooo hard to live as a billionaire in California, thoughts and prayers for her through this difficult time.”
They don’t get it. When rich people escape California’s staggering 14.4% top state income tax rate for the 0% of Tennessee, Texas or Florida, they have more money to invest in new businesses and jobs.
As he aims for the White House in 2028, Gov. Gavin Newsom is going to have to deal with the state’s business-repellent environment, including for the Volunteer State’s primary on Super Tuesday. To get beyond that, he likes to boast, as on X, “California is now the FOURTH largest economy in the world. Last year, the Golden State’s GDP topped $4.1T — surpassing Japan ($4.02T) and behind only Germany ($4.65T), China ($18.74T), and the entire U.S. ($29.18T).”
When a friend of mine moved to Tennessee last month, I quipped, “You just moved from the world’s fourth largest economy to the largest, the United States.”
I’ll spare you the math. But instead of GDP, let’s look at the more accurate PPP number, for purchasing power parity, which tries to balance the cost of living in different places. It may shock you that China leads at $40.7 trillion, now a third above America’s $30.5 trillion. That alone ought to be a wake-up call for our whole country.,
In third place is India at $17.7 trillion, followed by Russia, another surprise, at $7.19 trillion. That explains how it’s able to sustain a horrible war for three years.
California’s PPP would be about $4.27 trillion, for 11th largest globally. Not a great talking point for a presidential run.
Newsom also is pushing how California’s population shrinkage, which in the state’s history only happened under him, has ended. According to his office, the number rose 108,000 in 2024, 192,219 in 2023 and 48,764 in 2022, “up from the previously estimated decrease of 53,727 people.” But in 2025 the number likely will drop from exiles fleeing the wildfires and President Trump’s deportations.
The San Francisco Chronicle also reported, “California ranked last in the nation for net U-Haul move-ins for the fifth consecutive year in 2024, a sign of continued domestic out-migration in contrast with the booming southern U.S.”
When I came out in 1987, it was a magical time, not just for billionaires, but the middle class. In the 1980s, the state’s population soared by 25.7%. It jumped 6.1 million, from 23.7 million to 29.8 million. It was the decade of strong growth in Silicon Valley, aerospace and Hollywood.
In politics, we still had two strong political parties. Democrats controlled the Legislature, but the late Republican Gov. George Deukmejian kept government reasonable. The top income tax rate was only 9.3%, well below today’s 14.4%, noted above.
Using data from Newsom’s Jan. 2025 budget proposal, in 1987 state government workers comprised just 8.6 of every 1,000 California workers. That rose to 9.5 under Gov. Jerry Brown in 2019. Then it jumped sharply to 11.1 under Newsom. That is, today the percentage of state workers is 29% higher than under the Duke. Newsom’s California government is eating us alive.
I’m sticking here for now. But In-N-Out’s Southern expansion is another enticing reason for not staying. I’m working on a country song to take to Nashville, “All my taxes are in California / And that’s why I hang my hat in Tennessee.”
John Seiler is on the SCNG Editorial Board
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