BAY AREA, Calif. - eTradeWire -- After yesterday's Special Election, California awakens to a hangover. Rummaging through near-barren cupboards, our electorate finds what no one in their right mind would want: the highest taxes, the highest poverty rate, and the highest fuel and utility costs in the nation.

The glee of revelry has expired. In the cold light of dawn, Sacramento is bereft of adults willing to clean up the mess. With state, county, and city unfunded liabilities looming, the landlord has arrived—satchel in hand—ready to nail eviction notices onto the doors of distraught families.

Governor Newsom's ~$300 billion Proposition 50 gerrymandering scheme, Santa Clara County's eye-popping Measure A sales tax hike (ratcheting rates up to 9.75%, with Campbell headlining at a cumulative 10.5%), and Santa Cruz's Measure C—which can add up to $200,000 in additional taxes on certain home sales to further fund the homelessness industry charade—constitute the cold pizza upon which California's tax-and-spend mongrels lustfully feed and multiply.

To the millions of registered Republicans who did not vote, contribute to the Party, or support local candidates, one must ask: what will awaken you from your defeatist malaise and stupor—the apocalypse, or a final reckoning a la Venezuela, North Korea, Somalia, or Cuba?

If just five million registered Republicans contributed $200 each, the CAGOP would possess a $1 billion war chest to fight these wrongs. (Funds could be held in escrow until a certain threshold was met, ensuring true efficacy.) A billionaire will not swoop in to save California's middle class. Its members must roll up their sleeves, lock arms shoulder-to-shoulder, and save themselves from the abyss.

For middle-class families still holding out in the once-Golden State, the math is sobering. A 35% effective tax rate is widely recognized as the tipping point (per the Tax Foundation, CBO, and other reputable sources). Californians can endure only another ±1.85%, or roughly $2,779 more, before the taxpayer beast of burden finally buckles.

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How California Fell from Bad to Horrific

• CEQA strangled housing supply. California has underbuilt housing for more than 50 years. Home prices were once in line with national averages until the early 1970s, when CEQA passed. Skyrocketing prices now punish younger generations and new immigrants most.
• Measure D punished property owners. In Santa Clara County, voters downzoned hundreds of thousands of rural acres—land that could have been used to ease the housing shortage.
• Broken promises on water. Proposition 1 (2014) allocated $7.545 billion—about $10.35 billion today—for new water infrastructure. Yet no new dams have been built, while more than five have been removed.
• Anti-business policies fueled the corporate exodus. Companies leaving California include Northrop Grumman, Occidental Petroleum, McKesson, Core-Mark, Schwab, HP, Oracle, CBRE, AECOM, Tesla, and Chevron. PAGA and overregulation continue to drive jobs away.
• Public pensions remain unsustainable. Defined benefit plans have saddled state and local governments with untenable liabilities. Over 100,000 public retirees receive more than double the equivalent FRA Social Security benefit. Pension obligation bonds merely kick the can down the road.
• Bureaucracy bloats education. Over the past decade, the faculty-to-teacher ratio has nearly tripled—from 1,643 in 2015 to 4,815 in 2025. Cutting administrative bloat could raise teacher pay and restore focus to students.
• Utility costs are sky-high. Liability rules, renewable mandates, and operational inefficiencies have driven costs through the roof. Misguided energy subsidies and hazardous battery storage—like the Moss Landing fires that released heavy metals—compound the risk.
• Academic indoctrination is spreading. One-third of college students reportedly view Communism favorably, forgetting its 100 million victims. California's young people suffer the consequences of a squelched free-market: high housing costs, inflated energy bills, and less employment prospects.

Currency Debasement: The Hidden Tax

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At the federal level, currency debasement acts as an invisible, regressive tax that punishes the young and uninvested. Those without inflation-protected assets—homes, stocks, or small businesses—bear the brunt. Debased currency breeds resentment and unrest, eroding faith in the very system meant to empower opportunity.

Immigration Reform: Restoring Order and Dignity

California once benefited from clear, lawful pathways for guest workers, such as the successful Bracero Program (1942–1962). Today's immigration policy is a labyrinth of confusion that benefits neither worker nor citizen. Both parties have failed to restore clarity. Meanwhile, U.S. foreign policy must address root causes of migration—corruption, lawlessness, and cartel violence—so that citizens of resource-rich nations need not flee their homelands in desperation.

A Call to Reason and Renewal

Too many Californians have traded critical thinking for emotion. Yet the Golden State can still rise—if its people return to the principles that once made it the envy of the world.

The Republican Party stands for individual liberty, fiscal responsibility, entrepreneurship, faith, family, and freedom—not the suffocating bureaucracy and moral confusion of the tax-and-spend Left. Where progressives promise dependency, Republicans champion dignity through work. Where the hard Left divides, we unite around shared purpose and common sense.

Our vision is of safe neighborhoods, affordable homes, good schools, and government that serves rather than rules. With courage, clarity, and conviction, Californians can awaken from this long hangover—not to a bleak dawn of debt and decay, but to a sunrise of renewal, responsibility, and restored prosperity.

Be a part of the solution and join our team.  As Burke warns, "All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing."  For a link on how you can help make an immediate impact:  https://secure.anedot.com/verbica/sms

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Peter Coe Verbica is a fiscal conservative, business owner, husband, and father of four adult daughters; he is running for U.S. Congress, California, District 19.  For more information on how to change California for the better, please go to: peterverbica.com

(Image source: Midjourney 2025 with inputs by P. Verbica.)

Paid for by Verbica for Congress.