By Marcus Ruiz Evans, CalExit President – calexitnow.org
What is CalExit? It is simply the idea that California could be better off as an independent country from America. That may seem like a radical proposition, but only to those who aren’t familiar with the key facts. In 2012, I wrote the book, California’s Next Century 2.0: Economic Renaissance: California’s Next 100 Years, and I founded the movement in 2014.
First, being part of America has been a financial loss for California for the last 45 years. If Californians want to stay part of America for patriotic reasons that is fine, but they should be aware that it is straight up financial loss every year for California to stay part of America. Secondly, it is dangerous for Californians’s health to continue to be part of America, and finally, California exists in an abusive relationship with a partner who ridicules her, doesn’t care for her, and routinely mentions that they hate her.
For the first part. Since the late 1970s, or about 45 years, California has been a donor state and contributed more in federal taxes than it ever received in assistance or grants. Some years the amount lost is up to $84 – 100 billion. The general fund for California is around $228 billion, so we are talking about a loss of funds that would add an additional third to the CA general budget. While this has gone on, California has had to continually increase taxes on itself to fund maintenance to roads, schools and other things when it already has the money.
Secondly, in the book Global California by Abraham Lowenthal, it is pointed out that California loses billions of dollars every year having to wait for federal approval of international trade deals. California’s economy is dependent on international trade, being about 40% linked to international trade, while the overall American economy is only about 10% linked to international trade. Californians have food and technology products to sell to customers in Asia and around the world but have to wait from 5-10 years to get approval to actually sell the products. This is ruinous for business and has also gone on for decades.
The financial loss doesn’t stop there. Because America lied to allied nations about spying on them during Obama’ presidency, many people around the world will not buy California laptops, cell phones or computer programs because they are afraid they will be spied on because California is attached to America. This results in around $6 Billion plus losses every year. Additionally, when America does something chaotic on the world stage, like launch a war on Iraq against international law (George W Bush), or bans all Muslims from coming into America (Donald Trump), the world sours on the image of America. California is one of the top destinations for tourists and college students around the world. It is also FDI1 meaning it is the most sought-after place on the planet for investors around the world to put their money in. When America behaves badly, Californians tourism, education, and business arenas suffer greatly.
For the second part, consider that California is a place that has a problem with gun violence and mass shootings. Again, for decades California has been trying to pass sensible gun reforms (to keep its people safe), only to have those laws routinely struck down by the 9th circuit federal court as unconstitutional. We have mass shootings. People die. We try to protect ourselves, and then the federal government routinely says no.
Additionally, consider that virtually every war America has launched post WWII has been opposed by California. During the Vietnam War, most protests against the war were in California, and the state with the highest number of casualties from that war was also California, tied with New York. During the Iraq war, two of the three million people who marched against Iraq were in California alone, and yet, California also had the highest number of dead children coming back in body bags from a war that was not necessary, and we were completely against it from day one. Considering that America has launched more invasions of other countries in the last 2 decades than any other modern nation, how many more useless foreign wars is America going to start? Californians will protest, and then end up dying in (more than any other state in the Union).
Finally, it should be noted that while military defense is important, consideration must also be given to America’s adventurism abroad and its willingness to interfere in other countries’ affairs, which can result in foreign powers being unnecessarily upset with the United States. For example, George W Bush launched the War in Iraq, which resulted in the creation of ISIS. The largest ISIS terrorist attack was in California, because we are the easiest to smuggle into because we have the most ports. Later, Donald Trump got into a yelling match with the dictator of North Korea, and the first thing he did was produce a movie showing they had rocket technology that could drop a nuke on California. How many times does being associated with America put a bullseye on California that would not be there if we were left to our own?
California is a donor state, and when it spends, for example, around $400 billion in combined federal income taxes, it will only receive around $325 billion back from the Federal government in services and grants, almost every year for the last 4 decades. Around 35 other states in America, receive more in federal funds than they contribute. Some states get $3 in federal funds for every $1 they send in federal taxes. That sort of situation has never happened for California, yet about two-thirds of America is able to enjoy a standard of living beyond what they can afford because of California’s sacrifice. In return for subsidizing about 35 states, California is routinely hated on by a majority of American states.
When California experienced a recession in 2001, it requested a small bailout of a few billion dollars from Democrat Bill Clinton. In 2010, when there was a global recession and California was the hardest hit part of America, California asked Democrat Barack Obama for a small bailout of a few billion. Both times, they were denied by the fellow liberal administration and criticized in public for asking for a handout and scolded to manage its budget better. When California asked to please keep its National Guard inside California because they were needed for fire season, Republican George W Bush denied this request, and the California forest burnt down commensurately, while its National Guard was in Iraq. When California suffered the highest homelessness in America from 2011 to 2014, approaching numbers of 50% of all homeless in America, it never received 50% of the homeless assistance funding. The McKinney Vento homeless assistance program has existed since the 1970s, yet as a donor state, and having half of the homelessness in America, California only received a fraction of the federal homeless assistance funds. While news stations around America made it seem as though California created half of the homelessness in America, the situation was that many states in America dump their homeless in California rather than take care of their own people. While this resulted in California having half of the homeless youth in America, it only received about 25% of the funding for this group from federal funds, during this era, along with a lot of ridicule from 49 other states that something was inherently wrong with it because of its high homeless rate.
After the 911 attacks in 2001, the director of Homeland Security said that the most vulnerable state to be attacked from Al Qaeda was California because of its numerous airports, and seaports and a border with Mexico. The Federal government spent the next five years after 911, giving each state an equal amount of terrorist prevention funding. California was the most likely to be hit after 911, and yet it only received about one-fiftieth of the money, for the next half decade. California had to raise taxes on itself to fund nuclear radiation detectors at the port of LA so we wouldn’t be blown up.
Finally, recently, when California experienced the Palisades and Eaton wildfires and Californians were burnt alive and dead in the streets and people were homeless and destitute and in shock, President Donald Trump said he wasn’t sure he wanted to send disaster assistance to California because he wasn’t sure he liked us. Later, during a domestic protest against ICE immigration enforcement, Trump ordered the California National Guard against the protestors, even though the Governor, legislature and people of CA didn’t want this. To make it worse, Trump then sent in combat trained Marines against the protestors. A California senator protested these actions at a hearing and was thrown to the ground.
The most shocking part of all of these acts, was not that Trump did them, but that there were no Republicans on TV, or in Congress or standing on their own saying “Mr. President you cannot treat fellow Americans’ this way.” Maybe that is because there was an LA Times survey done last year—months before these acts—that showed 48% of all Republicans in America believe all Californians are “not American.” It is okay to deny disaster assistance and send in a foreign invasion army against California—because they are a foreign nation in the eyes of Republicans. This shouldn’t be a surprise, in 2014, Fox News ran a poll asking Americans which state they want “kicked out the union, and half of the response was for California. That same year the real estate company Movoto conducted a poll of Americans and concluded California was the least patriotic. In 2013, the year prior Business Insider magazine conducted a poll showing Americans hated California the most. In 2017, LA Times admitted that some of the biggest supporters for CalExit, were Americans outside of California. California has been hated on by America for a long, long time.
Our foreign image to the world is only harmed by America for the past 20 years, our economy has only been milked to provide a higher standard of living for 2/3rds of America than we can provide for ourselves, for the last 40 years, and the hate directed at California by a majority of its fellow Americans outside its border (remember Trump won the popular vote), has only continued to grow since 2016 – almost 1 decade ago.
If somehow CalExit were ever to become a thing I and tens of millions of other Californians would fight it down.