Politicians like to brag about California’s ranking among global economies. Just last month, Gov. Newsom shared data from Bloomberg finding that California was poised to become the world’s 4th biggest economy.

But as Loren Kaye, present of the California Foundation for Commerce and Education, recently pointed out in a California Chamber of Commerce guest commentary, “bragging rights make little difference to the day-to-day struggles that business owners and operators face in California.”

Behind the sheer size of California’s economy is a more eye-opening national index: The Tax Foundation found that California has the nation’s third-worst tax climate for businesses. That’s the reality the state’s business owners face each day — a state with “complex, nonneutral taxes with comparatively high rates,” according to the Tax Foundation.

“California’s personal income, corporate and sales taxes all ranked in the cellar, with only the state’s property tax system achieving a ranking in the top two deciles. Thank you, Proposition 13!,” Kaye said.

With the recent “budget whiplash,” as CalMatters put it, with the state going from a $97 billion surplus to a projected $25 billion deficit, the boom times come and go. What we are left with are policies that most reasonable people would concede are not friendly for businesses.

That should be cause for sincere concern for Golden State elected officials, policymakers, employers and workers alike.