Sacramento,-California---State-Capitol by Andre m is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist appeared on Fox Business Network’s Evening Edit show hosted by Elizabeth MacDonald for a discussion on the recent troubles with California’s tax code.

MacDonald noted California now has a $35 billion deficit. Norquist said:

“While everybody else in the country — all the other states — were cutting taxes, he (Newsom) had a significant tax increase of about $3 billion a year in California, which didn’t get him out of the problem, it made things worse.

People are leaving California, they lost a congressional district last redistricting, expected to lose another five the next time out. CEOs are leaving, Musk left. You’re looking at jobs fleeing. And they have a trillion dollars in debt on their pension. So when they said they had a surplus two years ago, that wasn’t true.”

When asked by MacDonald how an impending recession would affect California’s financial condition, Norquist explained how the volatility of systems reliant on progressive income taxes – such as California’s – cause Democrat politicians to overspend.

“Income taxes are very volatile in terms of if there is a recession or not. When the economy is doing well, they think they’re rich and will last forever, they spend like crazy, and then when it goes down, states get in trouble. If you don’t have an income tax, you don’t bounce around that way. But in California, they not only have an income tax, they have a very progressive income tax where the higher income people pay a huge percentage of the total budget. All it needs is a little bit of a recession, stock values go down, you don’t have the capital gains and they’re back in massive deficit.”

Despite the seeming harm to his public reputation, California Governor Gavin Newsom continues to back these policies. As companies leave California for more tax-friendly environments like Texas and Florida, ordinary Californians face an unstable economy and an increasingly challenging job market.

Click here to view the full interview.