Eat The Poor
At Watchdog.org, Steven Greenhut asks from Sacramento whether Earth Day policies -- specifically those in California -- destroy opportunities for the poor:
As the current governor sends California into a more aggressive anti-global warming posture -- he called for 50 percent reductions in petroleum use and a massive increase in the amount of electricity generated from renewable sources -- it would be nice to hear from the old idea-churning Brown. I'd love to hear his thoughts on what this means for California's poor and middle-class families, given the degree to which such policies drive up the cost of living and, arguably, drive out job-creating businesses.There's little debate on AB 32 and how its resulting cap-and-trade system increased electricity rates and what it cost in manufacturing jobs. It will soon add even more to gasoline prices. Less discussed: The degree to which the law (and related policies) has driven up the price of housing in a state that already had some of the least-affordable markets in the nation.
...Brown's high-speed rail system, which is his most-coveted program (and one that will spend more than $69 billion even as the state struggles with insufficient water infrastructure), is a core part of this strategy. The goal is to limit suburban "sprawl," and push most new development into high-density urban areas served by mass transit rather than automobiles. Brown once pointed to Marin County, the wealthy suburb north of San Francisco, as the state's land-use model. But median home prices there are around $900,000, in part because of the county's tough building restrictions.
California's official poverty rate tracks close to the national average, but when cost-of-living factors are included, it soars to the highest in the nation.
via @reasonpolicy
In general, anything that hurts the economy is going to hurt the poor. All government regulation hurts the economy becauses it reduced producitivity; when a business has to spend money on activities that don't have anything to do with the products or services they sell, it makes prices go up without a corresponding increase in (private sector) wages. A large part of the 1981-1998 economic boom occurred thanks to productivity increases, part of which was that the growth of government regulation was fairly slow during that period.
I read something interesting about Jerry Brown the other day. I need to find the link, but it was an article about how a lot of Boomer politicans are seemingly driven by teenage rebellion against their parents' generation, and it used Brown as a case in point. The author dug up some quotes from Brown's first time around as governor in the 1970s, in which he was pretty explicit about wanting to undo everything that had happened under the governorship of his father, Pat Brown. (The elder Brown's tenure was a time in which California's economy and population grew, and the state gained its reputation, which it has been coasting on for a long time now, as a model for the nation.)
Cousin Dave at April 28, 2015 7:32 AM
Jerry's high-speed/low-speed rail system is one of my pet peeves. The $69 billion estimate is only about half what it will cost. If it's ever built. It may even become a legacy project - passed down from generation to generation in an attempt to finish it.
Re: AB 32 cap-and-trade - Jerry borrowed the first $500 million that came in and put it in the general fund to waste as he pleases. We'll never see that money again.
As for the poor. Well, they'll always be with us. No sense in worrying about them.
Canvasback at April 28, 2015 1:54 PM
Not to be outdone, the USDA has just announced an initiative to target agriculture in an effort to reduce carbon emissions. If you think food is expensive now, just wait.
http://blogs.usda.gov/2015/04/23/secretary-vilsack-announces-partnerships-with-farmers-and-ranchers-to-address-climate-change/
Canvasback at April 28, 2015 3:04 PM
Consumer ignorance certainly does not help, either. There are protests of Nestlé shipping millions of gallons of bottled water out of the state of California – but almost no one notices that water will leave the state with every article of produce that they sell.
Radwaste at April 28, 2015 5:26 PM
Leave a comment