California’s Population Growth Screeches to a Stunning Halt

California Democrats couldn’t do more to ruin the West Coast if they set out to do it on purpose. At this point, they may as well ignite a nuclear bomb inside the San Andreas Fault, because if they keep destroying the state with liberal immigration policies, sky-high taxes, terrible fire management, an utter dearth of affordable housing, and every other misguided proposal under the sun, they will ultimately do far more damage than The Big One ever could.

All of this insanity is taking a direct, significant toll on the state’s growth. Millionaires and billionaires and tech companies still flock to California, but (other than illegal aliens), everyone else is steering clear. Not only are record numbers of individuals and businesses fleeing the state for Texas and other states where the tax situation is more friendly, the state’s population growth has screeched to a halt. According to the Associated Press, California hasn’t seen population growth this slow since 1900.

From the AP:

More people are leaving California than moving in, evidence of the toll the state’s housing crisis is taking as the world’s fifth largest economy inches toward 40 million people.

An estimate released Friday by the California Department of Finance put the California’s population at 39.96 million, just shy of the 40 million milestone demographers had predicted the state would have passed by now.

The report shows California added more than 180,000 people when accounting for births and deaths for the 12 month period ending July 1. But when you include people who moved in and out of the state, California lost 39,500.

State officials say it is the first time since the 2010 census that more people left California than moved in over the course of a year, contributing to the state’s slowest recorded growth rate since 1900.

“People won’t move here because they can’t afford to come in the door,” said Dowell Myers, professor of policy, planning and demography at the University of Southern California. “The jobs are there. The people aren’t there.”

The really unfortunate thing here is that states like Nevada, Texas, and Florida (which is pulling from a similar flight out of New York) are going to grow increasingly purple from the invading Californians. This is the tragedy of mass migration, even within the continental United States. People and companies flee the awful conditions imposed by a clueless Democrat-run government…only to bring that culture of political suicide with them to the new state! Not to be too crude about it, but this is just like a virus abandoning its host when the prospects of survival look grim.

America can (and has) survived quite a lot over the last 250 years, but can it survive being California-ized, state by state?