This may seem fanciful, if you’re not an illegal alien or a Syrian "refugee," but people used to come to California to retire. Today, if you’ve made some provision for the future and have a comfortable retirement income, California, with its confiscatory 10 percent state income tax, is one of the last places you would want to enjoy your golden years.
And if President Trump’s income tax reform passes the way it’s currently written, you’d have to be nuts to want to retire in the formerly golden state. (You can find complete details by clicking here.)
And this isn’t just my opinion either. The income–cognizant website WalletHub.com has compiled a list of the best and worst places to retire that proves my point, over and over.
There is not a single California jurisdiction included in the top ten places to retire. The list is composed of the following cities:
Orlando, Florida
Tampa, Florida
Miami, Florida
Scottsdale, Arizona
Atlanta, Georgia
Salt Lake City, Utah
Honolulu, Hawaii
Denver, Colorado
Austin, Texas
Las Vegas, Nevada
Interestingly enough seven of the 10 are in states run by Republicans, two have split political control and only one, Hawaii, is completely run by leftists.
This situation changes drastically when we get to the list of the worst places in the U.S. to retire. On that list of the dishonorable California holds six of the 10 spots!
Rancho Cucamonga, California
Fontana, California
Modesto, California
Stockton, California
Fresno, California
Detroit, Michigan
Worcester, Massachusetts
San Bernardino, California
Providence, Rhode Island
Newark, New Jersey
What’s more, all these wretched cities have something else in common: They are in states controlled by leftists.
The list analyzed the nation’s 150 largest cities and WalletHub.com compared the "retiree friendliness" by using criteria that included "the availability of home healthcare facilities and recreational activities, including golf, museums and bingo and the price of in home services and overall cost of living."
There is a lesson in this list for any politician open-minded enough to absorb the data. This, of course, leaves out the denizens of Sacramento — the swamp of the setting sun — because they are blinded by ideology and delusions of control.
Texas and Florida have four of the ten spots on the list because both states lack an income tax. Consequently the sales tax in those states may be higher than in others.But in California tax victims not only pay one of the highest income taxes in the land, they also are hit with high sales taxes.
There is simply no escape here. And I fear there won’t be any escape in the future either.
Reducing the taxman’s share of one’s income would mean cutting spending and the size of government and it would take an earthquake bigger than the temblors produced by the San Andreas Fault for that to happen in California.
Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Michael is an in-demand speaker with Premiere speaker’s bureau. Read more reports from Michael Reagan — Go Here Now.
Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher for the League of American Voters, and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of "Conservative Christian’s Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor!)." Read more of Michael Shannon's reports — Go Here Now.