Gavin Newsom just watched 239,000 Californians leave his state in a single year.
He flew to Austin anyway – to tell the crowd something no one in that room saw coming.
And what he said on that stage is something even his own allies can't explain away.
California Income Tax Rate Is the Highest in America But Newsom Just Called the State Affordable.
Standing on a stage at SXSW, with a presidential run on his mind and his record on his back, Gavin Newsom looked at a crowd in Texas and told them that Texas and Florida are "the real high-tax states."
He said Texas "taxes poor folks more than we tax our richest." He said middle-class Texans pay more than middle-class Californians.
Ron DeSantis didn't wait five minutes to respond.
"There are lies, damned lies and statistics," DeSantis posted on X. "Even people who like California governance acknowledge CA is a very high tax state: highest sales, income and gas taxes in the nation."
The Tax Foundation's Jared Walczak was just as direct. "States like Florida and Texas have much lower tax burdens overall," Walczak said. The claim "does not stand up to scrutiny."
California 48th in overall tax competitiveness in the Tax Foundation’s 2026 rankings. WalletHub placed California 4th in the country in total tax burden. Texas ranked 40th. Florida ranked 45th.
California's income tax hits 13.3% at the top – the highest in America. Texas and Florida collect zero. Not lower. Zero.
California vs Texas Taxes: What the Data Newsom Cited Actually Shows
Newsom's claim traces back to a left-wing think tank called the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy. Their study doesn't measure overall tax burden. It measures tax inequality — specifically, how much more the poorest earners pay relative to the richest within a given state.
California's refundable tax credits for low earners skew that comparison in California's favor. Newsom grabbed that one metric and told the crowd it means California taxes less. It doesn't.
WalletHub calculated what a median California household actually pays in state and local taxes every year: $9,612. In Texas, that same household pays $8,006. In Florida, $5,355.
That's the number that matters — and Newsom didn't mention it once.
People Leaving California Are Moving to Texas and Florida. Make That Make Sense.
The most devastating refutation of Newsom's tax argument isn't a spreadsheet. It's a U-Haul reservation.
California led the entire country in population net-loss for the sixth year in a row in 2025. More than 216,000 residents packed up and left for other states.
The National Taxpayers Union tracked where the money went: over the last decade, California lost $102 billion in adjusted gross income to other states. Florida gained $196 billion. Texas gained $54 billion.
Those aren't people fleeing low taxes. Those are people voting with their wallets against the highest income tax in America, gas taxes more than double what Texans pay, and sales taxes that hit 11.2% in parts of Los Angeles County.
The top destinations for departing Californians: Texas and Florida.
Californians aren't moving to states with higher taxes. They're fleeing the state that Gavin Newsom just called the affordable one.
Gavin Newsom 2028 Presidential Run Has a California Record Problem
Newsom didn't make this claim because he believes it. He said it because he can't defend his actual record, and he knows it.
Homelessness in California hit a record 187,000 people under his watch – nearly a quarter of every homeless person in America. He promised to build 3.5 million new homes by 2025 and delivered about one-fifth of that. The state is carrying a multi-billion-dollar budget deficit. California lost jobs outright in 2025 while the rest of the country added more than half a million. The bullet train connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco has become a national punchline.
Even the liberal Atlantic magazine recently concluded that "just about everything people don't like about the Democrat Party has come true in Newsom's California."
So Gavin Newsom flew to Texas, stood in front of a crowd, and told them up is down and out is in. He's auditioning to be president of a country he wants to turn into the state Americans keep leaving.
Sources:
- Jared Walczak, "Tax Competitiveness Index 2026," Tax Foundation, 2026.
- "Tax Burden by State in 2026," WalletHub, 2026.
- "Florida Continues to Attract New Residents," National Taxpayers Union Foundation, August 2025.
- Annie Gaus, "Gavin Newsom flamed for claim California taxes lower than Texas, Florida," New York Post, March 16, 2026.
- "California exodus continues in 2025," The Malibu Times, January 2026.
- "California Exodus," U-Haul Growth Index 2025, via Fox 11 Los Angeles, January 2026.
- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Annual Homeless Assessment Report, 2024.
- George Avalos, "California's Job Market Stalls as Other States Add Workers," Governing, February 2026.