MSN News reprints a paywalled Los Angeles Times story on a startling development: California's population growth has tumbled to the slowest rate in the state's history.  The wonderful weather, scenery, and other attractions that have drawn people since 1849 no longer work.

In asking themselves why this should be the case, writers Javier Panzar and Sarah Parvini manage to overlook the factor uppermost in my mind as I contemplate ending more than 30 years' residence in the Golden State: the highest in the nation taxes, contrasted with the dismal state of the highways, schools, and other public services.

The effective tax burden on middle-class and above Californians just jumped last year, as the federal deductibility for state and local taxes was limited to $12,000 a year, which drastically affects homeowners of million-dollar houses (the average cost in many urban districts) and people who pay up to 13% in state income taxes.

Instead, the writers focus on the "housing crunch" and such gems as this:

Ethan Sharygin, a demographer with the state, said researchers had expected to find a decline in the birthrate but were surprised to see such a large change.  One reason for the shift, he said, is the decline in immigrants from Mexico paired with an increase in Asian immigrants.

"The overall profile of immigrants to California is higher education, which correlates to lower fertility," he said.  "With native-born, we see a long-running trend throughout the U.S where fertility has been trending downward."

Perhaps the biggest force behind the change is higher education rates among women, Sharygin added.  That broader trend historically has been masked by high immigration from Latin America, but that is no longer the case.

"More education of women translates into later marriage, later childbirth and then fewer children," he said.

Yeah, that's the ticket: Californians are just so darned educated.

California now is a one-party state, and there is no fiscal discipline, and taxpayer money is wasted on an epic scale.  The state is planning to press ahead with billions more dollars spent on the never to be completed half-fast bullet train in the coming years, on the theory that a train from Modesto to Bakersfield is better than leaving half-finished bridges, even at the cost of billions more wasted on construction and many millions of dollars a year in subsidies for trains that will never draw a significant number of passengers.

Now, it is possible that MSN cut out sections of the original L.A. Times article in which the effect of the state's extreme taxation are considered.  In that case, the fault lies with MSN, not the writers or the LAT.