Another great catch from Jonathan Chait, California Democrats Hurting Rob Schneider. The comedian has decided to become a Republican. And the reason is really great, “We need to break this super-majority that isn’t helping with jobs. The last time I made a movie in California was seven years ago, and that’s because we’re not being competitive.” Ah yes, the lack of acting jobs inside the boards of California is an outrage! How could those Democrats have betrayed Rob Schneider like this?! And notice: the Democrats have had a super-majority for only 9 months, yet they are responsible for the lack of films shot (because they are still mostly made here) in California over the last 7 years.
He goes on to explain that he owns a vitamin company. But he is so loyal to the state that made him a multimillionaire that he left because of undisclosed “regulations.” He then goes on to claim that things are really great in Texas because of the lack of regulations, blah, blah, blah. Well, that isn’t true. As Matt Yglesias has pointed out, the reason for the huge growth in Texas is that real estate is cheap. Texas is not seeing increasing productivity. They are only seeing businesses move there because the cost of living is low, which allows them to pay their workers less. But as even Schneider points out: there are reasons that California is a better place to live than Texas and that means it will always be more expensive to live here.
Rob Schneider is typical of a couple of things. First: typical Default Democrat. I see this kind of thing all the time. Most Democrats (Like Republicans!) don’t think much about policy. So they don’t much think about why a strong safety net is important. That allows someone like Scheider to see that there are a couple of bureaucratic obstacles in the way of his making even more money from his vitamin business and so he freaks out and changes parties. Of course, the truth is that the Republican Party isn’t going to do anything for his small business. The Republicans are the party of big business and all they will do is make sure that big companies have big advantages over small companies.
The second typical thing about Schneider is how as a Republican he is only interested in his own welfare. California all by itself is the 12th largest economy in the world. Texas is just over half its size and its per capita income is only three-quarters as high. And why is that? Because only asshole business owners like Schneider move their businesses from California.
The last (and first) good film Rob Schneider was in was Demolition Man, and he didn’t even get screen credit for it. But maybe that has something to do with it. He has been in at least two films with fucktard Sylvester Stallone. Maybe they had a meeting of little minds and figured out that in the last 9 months the Democrats had managed to destroy the film industry for the previous seven years.