Originally posted by @Phil Wells:
@Jeff Lundeen it’s not necessarily out of state where people are moving to. Here in Washington I’m seeing a lot of people leave the Seattle area and head for the slightly more conservative East side like Spokane.
Having said that we have no state income tax so that makes WA a slightly unique situation.
This is my thought re: CA, too. If people here can work from anywhere, they'll probably just move somewhere cheaper in CA. What people aren't taking into consideration in this discussion, as far as why someone would or maybe should stay in CA, is Prop 13 - our law that says our properties can't be reassessed as long as we own it - and - we can pass that benefit on to our heirs. The taxes can only go up - by law - a max of roughly 1.5%/year. That's huge for homeowners or buy and hold investors.
I've lived in WA and TN, and there's a lot to like about both, except the weather. It's hard to move from the west coast to the south, culturally. Our joke about WA when I lived in the mountains a couple hours from Portland, OR, was that we had 9 months of winter and 3 months of bad sledding.
And by the way, a large portion of CA is red, as far as how the counties vote, or it's pretty evenly split red and blue. It's just in the major metropolitan areas, which are a tiny part of the entire state, that vote blue. So, you can simply move to another county and hang out with cowboys and hunt. Like Idaho with CA weather :-)
As to taxes - any place with decent amenities pays for them with taxes. So, if it isn't sales taxes, or income taxes, it will be property taxes. The taxes are there, though.
EDIT: I found this map that shows how different counties vote by party affiliation in CA: https://s.hdnux.com/photos/01/05/55/34/18274072/7/640x0.jpg
People forget how big this state is and that we still have real cowboys and cowgirls.
