Riverside County supervisor Jeff Stone has had enough of the welfare cheats and such in the more left-wing parts of California stealing the hard-earned money of his constituents, so he’s plotting secession:
“California was once the world’s fourth largest economy and now struggles to hold on to eighth place,” Stone said. “Our taxes are too high, our schools don’t educate our children well enough, unions and other special interests have more clout in the Legislature than the general public. It has to change.”
Stone will explore his proposal more in-depth at the July 12 Board of Supervisor’s meeting.
In his announcement on Thursday, he suggested the counties of Riverside, Imperial, San Diego, Orange, San Bernardino, Kings, Kern, Fresno, Tulare, Inyo, Madera, Mariposa and Mono be asked to consider forming the State of South California. Boards of supervisors and city councils within those counties would be invited to meet and discuss the feasibility of secession from California, Stone said.
Dividing California into two states is probably a good idea, albeit an unconstitutional one, but as a reality check, note that the proposed state of South California would be much poorer than the existing state of California:
California is blessed with two of the ten richest metro areas in the United States — San Francisco and San Jose — and any political scheme that hinges on people detaching themselves from those engines of prosperity is pretty strange.