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And then they get hit with state income tax, which the state wastes on frivolous policies and nannying. No thanks.
by angersock 8y ago
And then they get hit with state income tax, which the state wastes on frivolous policies and nannying. No thanks.
- komali2 8y agoWhat examples of policies do you feel are wasteful?
- abtinf 8y agoI grew up in CA and moved away just a few years ago, and I didn’t have an appreciation for the extraordinary corruption and wastefulness of state, county, and local policies. Only rarely did any single single policy seem particularly egregious or catastrophic. Then I moved to Washington State. No state income tax, but comparable sales and property taxes. Much less regulation at every level of government. The savings in income tax alone paid for my rent, until I bought a house. The house I bought is in an extremely high quality neighborhood. School ratings are almost maxed out. Professional or entrepreneurial neighbors. Responsive government services. My home costs less than a condo in south San Jose. I pay about half the Bay Area rate for full time childcare. Gas is significantly cheaper. 5 dozen eggs at Costco cost $6-8. Life is good. No one is dying in the streets. If anything, people are thriving and have hope to create a better future. It is not until I experienced the totality of difference between Silicon Valley and another west coast city (in my case Tacoma and its suburbs, though I suspect Portland is similar) that I groked the suffering inflicted by CA politics.
- abritinthebay 8y agoSo no specifics then? Just hand waving generalizations with no content?
- abtinf 8y agoI shared my personal experience based on living in the bay area for 30 years. YMMV.
- dang 8y agoWe've asked you so many times to stop being uncivil on HN that I have to conclude that you don't want to use this site as intended, and have banned this account. It doesn't matter how right you are, or how wrong someone else is; it's not ok to be a jerk here. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
- abritinthebay 8y agoWell if you’re going to plain lie about my actions on this site (viewable to all) then what would be the point?
- scurvy 8y agoCostco is all around the Bay Area. I shop there almost exclusively for bulk groceries. Food costs are reasonable here with little effort.
- abtinf 8y agoIn general, food costs slightly more in WA. However, I use eggs as an example because it is a staple food in my family. I was in a CA Costco last week, and noted that a comparable quantity of eggs would cost 3-4x the WA price.
- komali2 8y agoThis is painting with such broad strokes. Say I'm a member of San Francisco city council - what am I supposed to do with your accounting here? "Make city less corrupt." Okay... "Remove state income tax" welp. The OP couldn't give specifics, can you? Because otherwise we could just point to different population sizes and city history and state size as the reason your experience differs.
- abtinf 8y agoWould you agree that many minor policies can combine for a large impact? I can appreciate the desire for more detail - I would likely ask for the same thing. Yet I decided to paint in broad strokes because I'm trying to illustrate the cumulative difference of all policies combined. You have two first world states, one with great services and affordable cost of living, the other with notoriously bad services (e.g. ranked 44th in k12 education) and widely lamented cost of living. I think it is worth trying to figure out the differences. It might turn out that those difference are caused by simple demographic factors, which would be very sad and fatalistic, or it might turn out that political decisions have influenced the direction of society. As a basic example, consider waste management in SF. The impact of SF instituting a mandatory composting program, which likely requires full-time headcount (with near term salaries and half-century long pensions) to monitor garbage bins, write citations, collect fines, inspect businesses, and carry out other enforcement and monitoring actions, might be small given the wealth and population of the city. But what is the impact when combined with a thousand other similarly small policies?
- komali2 8y agoYes, many minor policies can have an impact. I hope to figure out what those policies are, or what new policies are required, because I am not happy with many things in SF and I want to contribute to making the city better. I don't think population differences is fatalistic, I think it just means a sharper analysis is required than "why don't we try how Portland does it?" Hence the existence of states at all, at least originally. I'm not opposed to the idea that Portland's strategy is better than SF's, I just don't want to fall into the trap of assuming differences between quality of life are blamed on arbitrary things that may not at all be relevant. Maybe demographic differences are one of those arbitrary things! Picking the given case specifically, thus I would immediately ask "what is the environmental impact? Maybe it's worth the cost?" I don't have the data on hand. I had asked my questions hoping perhaps you did have specific policies etc that were working better in Portland that I could start researching but again it's fine if you don't, this is all in service of me learning more so anything you can teach me I am grateful for.
- angersock 8y agoSF ban in 2010 on Happy Meal toys, the overall pension crisis, the continuing debacle of the high-speed rail project there... One that seems to have actually worked was the ban on plastic bags.
- abritinthebay 8y agoLiterally the most successful state in the nation but... k. Care to get specific?