I feel like the quality of life is similar between the two. I don't feel like I was getting anything for the 13%+ extra taxes I was paying in California.
Nearly every California program has a huge amount of wastage. Take:
- High speed rail - 10x the cost of comparable European programs, still haven't built anything. Deadlocked by regulation, lawsuits, and poor planning.
- Or all the fraud in the hospice program, unchecked for years until some YouTuber just... went up to one and made a video.
- Or spending over $1M/homeless on housing the homeless and not being able to do so.
California is a lot of talk (regulations, state programs, taxes) coupled with extremely poor execution.
Where, pray tell, is this state with zero taxes? Próspera?
And just like you describe, it would've been ok if all of the tax money went to the people it was meant to be, but unfortunately CA is built upon n number of middle man companies who each take something off the top.
Some people might argue that it's not meant to be about what you personally get back. Social contract and all that...
I get your other points but this part was phrased in an unfortunate way.
For example, I would be happy paying those 13% taxes in Switzerland, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore! (Some even have lower taxes.) But I felt that money was being totally wasted in California.
I genuinely think CA is something like <10% as efficient with tax money as these countries, and it's largely because certain groups take it as a personal attack when you imply tax inefficiency is a problem.
But that doesn't tell us much about the relationship between that thing and their regulations. The regulations might be supporting the thing, or the thing might be so successful that the damage being done by the regulations becomes tolerable. It's entirely plausible that if other states attempted that level of regulation they'd crumple like tissue paper because they don't have the economic power of California's IT sector to balance out the excess demands being placed on businesses.
Could be inertia.
Some examples:
* ARL / Automatic Renewal Law: If a company allows you to sign up for a subscription online, they also must provide an immediate, straightforward way to cancel it online.
* SB 478: No bullshit junk fees tacked on to prices. Any price displayed, be it for concerts, hotels, or whatever else, must be the full, out-the-door price.
* SB 244: Right to Repair: Electronics and appliance manufacturers must make diagnostic tools, manuals etc available for at least 7 years after manufacture.
However, California's CARS Act, which took effect July 1, 2025, prohibits misrepresentations about the costs or terms of purchasing, financing, or leasing a vehicle, including the availability of vehicles at an advertised price.
America has such an aversion to including taxes on a listed price so I doubt that will ever be included.
Why should I have to go through the entire process just to see the price? Have you ever been in a store that has the tax added onto the price tag? It is very nice to not have to do mental math.
I think this is the crux of our disagreement. In my experience, the more degrees of freedom the seller has, the more chances to fuck you over they have.
I think - and this might be my European perspective and maybe why we feel differently about regulations than Americans - the main source of risk is corporations trying to take advantage of you, not the government. Curbing said risk through regulations is a core part of good governance.
[0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/median-income-after-tax-l...
[0] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/best-countries-fo...
And all of these are definitely worse than just making the vendor behave properly...