Turns out California actually is "golden"...

Conservatives are united in believing California is a socialist disaster. From Max Taves of the DC Report blog that also publishes investigative reporter David Cay Johnstone's work, here are some facts that say otherwise.

Some excerpts:

Never one to resist attacking California, The Wall Street Journal editorial board ran an editorial titled “California’s Covid Woes.” It obsessed over overcrowded hospitals and long wait times, which it blamed on MediCal, the state’s medical care program for the poor. It is another favorite target of Journal editorial disdain.

Curiously, the WSJ’s attack, which compared California’s Covid record unfavorably with Texas’, never mentioned a crucial fact: California’s Covid mortality rate was 30% below that of Texas and 36% below the nation as a whole.

Of course, there’s little wonder why the Journal editorial board omitted that statistic: including it would vitiate their argument. After all, it’s pretty hard to portray California’s response to the pandemic as a horror when its death rate from this pernicious virus is well below the rest of America.

Here’s what you won’t read in their screeds, starting with what arguably is the biggest lie about California:

Business and Investment

While California is home to 12% of the U.S. population, it attracted 47% of the most sought-after investment dollars deployed nationwide last year, according to National Venture Capital Association data.

The $156 billion of venture capital invested in California firms in 2021 was a 79% increase over its 2020 haul. And the 2020 sum was a 29% increase over 2019.

Far from a state in economic decline, California attracted more capital last year than at any point in the NVCA’s data set going back to 2005.

California is the most populous state so those total figures could suggest the state fell short in these investments when examined per person. But no. California got nearly four times its share per capital of all such investments in America.

Income, Wealth and Poverty

The typical California household took home more than 45 other states; 22% more than American households overall. The nearly $15,000 in extra income has not, however, deflated the state’s poverty rate. It is persistently high at 11.8%, yet still below such darlings of conservatives as Mississippi (19.5%), Louisiana (18.8%), Arkansas (16%), Alabama (15.6%) and Oklahoma (15.1%), federal data show.

A state study in 2019 found that while California is 12% of the American population, its residents own 17% of American wealth despite its high taxes and environmental protections. Of course it’s hard to get rich in states that don’t provide the commonwealth benefits that foster wealth creation and high-paying jobs with benefits such as quality research universities that Californians have long supported.

Crime

You were more likely to get killed in 27 other states than in California, the federal Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported for 2020. Interestingly, you were far more likely to get killed in Mitch McConnell’s Kentucky than the Golden State. The highest rates were in Louisiana and Mississippi, more than triple the California rate, while the rates in Arkansas and Missouri were more than double the California rate.

...

Longevity

CDC data show that Californians live longer than the residents of all but one state – Hawaii, another state conservatives love to bash. Life expectancy in California is 80.8 years, more than six years longer than in bottom-ranked Mississippi and West Virginia, both beloved of conservatives. Hawaii bests California by about two months of extra life.

These are among many inconvenient facts for conservatives about how California, with its high taxes and environmental protections, outperforms America overall and the Southern, Midwest and Rocky Mountain states where conservatives have the most sway.