“I’m stating nothing new here,” said Newsom. “I’m simply getting ahead of the trend. Historically, our state population has always been on the incline, sometimes very steeply. But now it’s actually declined. That’s OK because at almost 40 million, our population is too big.
“That many people packed into a place even as big as California creates a list of problems so long I can’t remember them all,” said Newsom. “So today I’m officially closing the state. No new wannabe residents are allowed to settle and, on top of that, current residents are encouraged to move out. Please go impact some other governor’s state.
“We have more than a dozen wildfires raging in the state,” said Newsom. “We have countless homeless people living on the streets everywhere. We’re running out of water. Farms are going dry. We’re much of the country’s food basket, but we’re in a death spiral. Now the Delta variant is pushing Covid up out of control. Yet with all that, real estate values are astronomical and still climbing.
“As governor,” said Newsom, “it’s my job to protect the residents and resources of the state. That’s the current residents who are determined to stay and the resources that are suffering damage, decline and decay. To do that, the executive decision I’m announcing today is the state’s closure. If conditions improve at some time during my tenure, making it reasonable to reverse my decision, I’ll do that. California is hereby closed.”
