Not from California but I don't blame him. Instead of controlling waste, the usual answer from state and local governments (particularly in California) seems to be raise the taxes. When you have janitors making making 250k+ you have some serious issues and that's just the tip of the iceberg. The sheer number of administrative positions, departments and salaries just boggle my mind.<p><a href="https://time.com/4555692/san-francisco-bart-janitor-salary/" rel="nofollow">https://time.com/4555692/san-francisco-bart-janitor-salary/</a><p><a href="https://www.openthebooks.com/forbes-why-california-is-in-trouble--340000-public-employees-with-100k-paychecks-cost-taxpayers-45-billion/" rel="nofollow">https://www.openthebooks.com/forbes-why-california-is-in-tro...</a>
People can blast him for being greedy, but here's the thing about California and its taxes: they are being wasted.<p>We have a state with awful public transit, tent cities of homeless people, decaying infrastructure, wildfires (yes its partly a Federal problem but the state could do something), gross inequality between school districts, and chronically terrible urban planning leading to a housing shortage. California is incredibly wealthy and is relatively high tax (though by no means the highest) so what bottomless pit is that money falling into? California is a money pit where no amount of cash fixes anything. Might as well just set money on fire.<p>You could say the same thing about America as a whole. We pay only a bit less in taxes than Canada (at least if you're middle class) but get a fraction of the benefits.<p>I'd be sympathetic with a tax increase if current money were being spent wisely, but don't ask for more money when you can't even build one high speed rail line at 10X the cost of anywhere else in the world.
Another article on the same here:<p><a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/billionaire-gundlach-leave-california-taxes" rel="nofollow">https://www.theblaze.com/news/billionaire-gundlach-leave-cal...</a>
"Leaving" California for a billionaire means likely he's going to start claiming taxes in another state while continuing to live in California and enjoy the benefits of being in the state without paying for them.