Fact-Check Fail: Newsom's Regressive Tax Attack on Texas, Florida Debunked

Ever looked into U-Haul prices to and from California? For some time now, it's cost more to rent a U-Haul truck or trailer for a trip from California to Texas or Florida than it costs to rent one for a trip to California from Texas or Florida. Why? Because there are a lot more people looking to bail on California than who are going in the opposite direction.

That's understandable. Look, I know people - friends and colleagues - who live in California, and who are doing sterling work in trying to set the once-Golden State back on the path of, well, sanity. But for the time being, California is stuck with a Democrat majority in the assembly, and one of the least competent governors in American history, the impeccably coiffed Democrat Gavin Newsom.

Governor Newsom has been generating a lot of gaseous outpourings lately about how the people who know what they are talking about really don't, and that a person who has no idea what he's talking about (Newsom) really does. My friend and colleague Sister Toldjah recently brought us the story of one of Newsom's phony comparisons, and how he was b-slapped by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Now, James Agresti, the president of Just Facts, a fact-checking think tank, is weighing in to further defenestrate Governor Newsom's claims.

"Texas and Florida are the REAL high-tax states," Newsom recently posted on X, explaining onstage at SXSW in Austin, Texas that California has the most "progressive tax rates in America" while taking shots at the tax burden in Florida and Texas.
"Your middle class pays more taxes in Texas than our middle class in California," Newsom said in Texas. "It’s a great mythology, it’s just ‘the richest of the rich come here because they can avoid paying a damn penny.'"

Horse squeeze. Here's where Just Facts comes in:

The comments drew pushback from conservatives on social media, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and from Just Facts President James Agresti, who says he looked into a "number of different angles" to determine the "validity" of Newsom’s claims.
"I looked at how much is each state taxing each of its citizens on average? So if you look at California, they collect about $10,000 a year in taxes for every person in the state, whereas the figures for Texas and Florida are only about $5,000, or about half as much," Agresti told Fox News Digital.
"However, California is a higher-income state, so I also looked at it as a percentage of the states' economies and what I found is that California taxes about 14% of its economy, as opposed to 9% for Texas and Florida."

See, here's the difference between Gavin Newsom's claims and, well, reality: People dealing with reality can bring numbers to the table, as opposed to Governor Newsom's prodigious written borborygmi.

But wait! There's more!

Just Facts broke those taxes down in a recent study and found that California imposes some of the highest taxes in the nation, with a top personal income tax rate of 13.3%, while both Texas and Florida have no state income tax.
Property taxes in California account for about 2.8% of personal income, slightly lower than Texas at 3.6% and close to Florida’s 2.6%, though measured as a share of home values, California’s rates are generally lower than both states, but in other tax areas, California is largely more burdensome.
The state’s unemployment insurance tax rate matches Texas at 6.2%, but is higher than Florida’s 5.4%. California also has a higher statewide sales tax at 7.2%, compared to 6.2% in Texas and 6.0% in Florida. Drivers in California face significantly higher gas taxes as well, paying 70.9 cents per gallon, more than triple Texas’ 20 cents and well above Florida’s 40.3 cents.

Small wonder people are leaving for greener pastures.

There's an opportunity here, as I've been saying and writing for some time, for California's remaining Republicans. These are numbers that aren't looking good for California's Democrats, who are responsible for this fiscal mess. People, after all, tend to vote their pocketbooks. Of course, there are two problems: The coastal elites, who vote overwhelmingly Democrat, because their wealth shields them from the consequences of stupid policies, and the dependency constituency, who vote for whoever promises them the most free Schiff.

It can't go on forever. But in the meantime, Gavin Newsom will no doubt continue speaking freely on topics he knows nothing about. And this guy is considered a front-runner for the Democrats' 2028 presidential ticket? Seriously?

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