Am I crazy or reading the wrong info or are you being hyperbolic when you say California has "insane" income taxes?

As an example, the effective rate when making $200k is 25% including federal taxes. That's great. You get to live in a productive and supportive society. The only issue I see is that housing is expensive and $150k, as much as it can support a comfortable lifestyle, would be insufficient to ALSO buy a home. But what we're talking about here is a separate issue from housing.

(your state taxes when making $100k would only be $2k, to preempt that retort)

The tone around "high taxes" are set by the uber-rich. Hilariously, most of them borrow against their shares to fund their lifestyles (where the interest is tax-deductible!) if they're even still resident in CA.

That being said, California is an ungovernable mess where state-constitutional amendments dictate a huge percentage of taxation and spending. It'd otherwise be a great place to live if real estate prices were somehow brought into line, but alas...

Damn, only 25%? Luxury!