America First California

Our Nation is a land of dreams, and nowhere has this dream stirred the imagination more than the great state of California. California embodies the pioneering spirit that anything is possible and that ours is a country of boundless hope and opportunity. This is what drove men and women past the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, on covered wagons and against all odds, towards this land of milk and honey. The land itself began to represent something unconquerable in the human spirit, something that was uniquely and undeniably American.

Later still, drawn by stories of gold speckling the riverbeds, small towns started to form among old Spanish outposts. Orange groves crept up the coast. Trains and automobiles arrived and oil derricks began to appear. Earthquakes came, but the brave people of California rebuilt. The cities grew bigger and wider and the freeways broader, and the people, with the horrors of two world wars behind them, sought warmth and the ocean. This time, they were driven by different dreams, but the indomitable American spirit was still at the heart of them.

And yet, at some point in the last 40 years, California lost its way. Unfortunately, burdensome regulations, crippling taxes, high energy costs, and even higher crime rates have become the norm. And sadly, departing businesses and abandoned storefronts now mark what was once the land of plenty. On top of all this, California is now witnessing an increasingly intolerant culture war waged against those who do not subscribe to certain ideologies.

Based on the belief that there is still hope for turning things around, the America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit, non-partisan research institute that educates lawmakers and the American public on the policies that put America first, has founded a state chapter in California. Building on AFPI’s America First Agenda, AFPI-California is committed to the renewal of California. By embracing the policies that helped build California’s economy, this state can once again experience a bright new chapter.