Flatten your tax, California!

(CITY JOURNAL) — Six years ago, I decided to leave Rancho Santa Fe, California, for Nashville, Tennessee. That’s a major undertaking for anyone, but particularly for a 25-year resident of Southern California, dragging his whole family and company along with him. I still remember decision day: January 5, 2006. I’d been disappointed in November by the defeat of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ballot initiatives, which aimed at reining in state spending, but I was utterly aghast as I read the transcript of the governor’s State of the State speech just days into the new year. Clearly, he had resolved to move in a big-government direction, making proposals that included issuing billions of dollars’ worth of new bonds to pay for statewide infrastructure projects. The last thing California needed was more government spending. It was time for me to go.