Abortion, Religion, Immigration

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AUDIO – In-depth discussion on the sensitive topics of abortion, religion, and immigration. One hour on the Andrew Schatkin Show.

http://schatkinshow.com/2020/03/podcast-with-edward-ring/

The Wondrous, Magnificent Cities of the 21st Century

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The American Conservative, which normally publishes informative and thought provoking articles and commentary, recently laid an egg. They published a misanthropic, overwrought, pessimistic – ok, apocalyptic – aggressively Malthusian screed, written by James Howard Kunstler. Might there be equal time for optimists? Isn’t optimism one of the defining qualities of conservatism?

Entitled “Why America’s Urban Dreams Went Wrong,” Kunstler’s latest essay attacks pretty much every urban amenity Americans have built since the invention of the automobile. And his reasoning, all of it, reflects a dismal lack of faith in human creativity and adaptability, paired with a certainty that the 21st century will be one of declining fortunes and devastating scarcity.

Kunstler is pushing what he calls “The Long Emergency” (also the title of a book he wrote in 2005), a “general contraction,” whereby “The urban metroplexes of the U.S. have assumed a scale and complexity of operation that cannot be sustained in the coming disposition of things. They will contract substantially.”

And what is this “coming disposition of things?” According to Kunstler, they include “population overshoot, the fossil-fuel quandary, competition over dwindling resources, an unsound banking system, climate uncertainty, and much more.”

When it comes to human habitations, especially in America, Kunstler doesn’t have a lot of nice things to say. He doesn’t like high rises, writing “Cities that are overburdened with skyscrapers and megastructures face an added degree of failure. These buildings will never be renovated in the coming era of resource and capital scarcity.” But he doesn’t spare the suburbs.

“Suburbia has poor prospects for adaptive re-purposing in the lean and stringent conditions ahead,” writes Kunstler, “Rather, it has three probable destinies: slums, salvage operations, and ruins, perhaps in that order. The suburbs will certainly lose their utility as mass motoring comes to an end. Their supporting infrastructures—great highways and road networks, water systems, electric distribution, waste disposal—will disintegrate from deferred maintenance.”

Why Are Malthusian Proto-Preppers Attractive to Conservatives?

It’s easy enough to pick apart additional snippets from Kunstler’s recent article in the American Conservative. But his perspective is transparent and easily grasped. He doesn’t believe American urban civilization is sustainable, and he believes we’d all better move to places where there’s easy access to farmland and rivers; as he puts it, “small towns and small cities that are scaled to the capital and resource realities of the future.”

If you want to get more of an impression of James Howard Kunstler, have a look at his 2004 TED talk, or visit his homepage. He’s made a living as a survivalist masquerading as an urban geographer, but he could have just as easily earned success as a foul-mouthed stand up comic.

Stepping back, Kunstler’s over-the-top act is sort of endearing, but the fact that doomsday merchants like him are gaining traction with some conservatives is not the least bit endearing. If you haven’t noticed the growing overlap between libertarian conservatives and environmentalist zealots, you aren’t paying attention.

In this one-sided alliance, as usual, libertarians are being used. The prevailing ideology of environmentalist zealots is to reduce the human “footprint” by any means necessary. Among other things, this translates into a war on suburbia, based on its alleged unsustainability. And into that fray wades an increasing number of “woke” libertarians, attacking infrastructure proposals to the extent they receive any government funding.

Modern civilization, which Kunstler apparently believes is on the verge of collapse, requires airports, seaports, railroads, reservoirs, aqueducts, freeways, and other amenities ranging from universities to prisons. Usually these amenities are not feasible without public funding. Libertarians, though small in numbers, object to public funding, and they help kill these projects, especially since approval often hangs by a thread. This hands victory to environmentalists who don’t want to build anything.

Yes, freeways “subsidize the automobile,” but the only people who have a problem with this are libertarians and environmentalist extremists. Yes, zoning laws protect the ambiance of well established suburbs with spacious lots, but the only people who have a problem with that are libertarians and environmentalist extremists. And yes, most people prefer to pay their taxes and receive a broad array of government services, including enjoying roads and freeways, but the only people who want to make them pay by the mile are, you guessed it, libertarians and environmentalist extremists.

There’s nothing wrong with most if not all of the core concepts of libertarians, or libertarian conservatives. And there’s nothing wrong with letting Malthusians like James Howard Kunstler have their say. But libertarians need to carefully consider the implications of finding common cause with environmentalist extremists, regardless of whether or not their tactical objectives sometimes align. Because the reason libertarians are libertarians is because they have faith in the power of the individual to solve any challenge. Inherent in that faith is optimism for the future.

Cities and Suburbs are Beautiful and It’s Just Begun

It is fashionable to insult the generic monotony of America’s suburbs, but the documented truth is that most families prefer living in them. Most American families want a single family detached home with a yard big enough for a dog, a garden, some trees, a patch of grass and maybe even a swimming pool. The principle arguments against suburbs, that there isn’t enough land or that they are ecologically unsustainable, are based on biased studies and are fundamentally flawed. And there is a beauty to suburbs that is obvious to the people living in them, even if it eludes the snobs.

As for the densely packed cities of America, it is preposterous to think a free society cannot innovate towards constructing even more grand and inspiring structures. Take a look at the skyline of Dubai or Shanghai to see what a confident culture that isn’t riven with Malthusian doubts and bureaucratic paralysis can accomplish.

For every question raised by the likes of Howard James Kunstler, there is an answer. If we run out of oil, which perhaps we will in a few centuries, we will still have nuclear fission including safe breeder reactors, and by then we will also have nuclear fusion. If we run out of precious minerals, we will mine the asteroids. If we run out of sand for cement, we’ll find new strata, perhaps extracted from the brine issuing from desalination plants. If we can’t accommodate all our traffic on roads, we will build passenger drones, and we will build transportation tunnels deep under our cities. If we can’t grow enough food on our arable land, or wish to return some of that land to nature, we will engage in high rise indoor agriculture.

The biggest threat to global civilization is not resource scarcity, unless it is politically contrived. Examples of that can be found from California to Caracas. If environmentalist extremists and socialists (a lot of overlap there) succeed in destroying otherwise vibrant and resilient free market economies, then the capacity to innovate and adapt to genuine raw material supply challenges could be lost, with all the catastrophic results that Kunstler’s made a career out of envisioning.

The 21st century can be defined by stability, abundance, enlightenment, and glorious, sprawling, glittering cities and suburbs. It can be remembered as the century when humans eradicated infectious disease, cured cancer, dramatically extended life expectancy, protected wildlife and wilderness, achieved universal literacy, brought freedom and opportunities to everyone on earth, and took the first bold steps towards becoming a multi-planet species.

There are plenty of difficult challenges facing mankind. But maybe, just maybe, we face a future that is dazzling beyond description.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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California’s K-12 Spending Exceeds $20,000 Per Pupil

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“It’s not enough. We’re still 41st in the nation in per pupil funding. Something needs to change. We need to have an honest conversation about how we fund our schools at a state and local level,”
–  California Governor Gavin Newsom, State of the State Address, February 12, 2020

It should come as no surprise that Governor Newsom would call for more education spending, but is he right to say that California is 41st in per pupil funding? It turns out the answer to that question is complicated.

The place to start would be the readily available data on California’s per pupil spending. The most recent compilation from Ed Week is for 2019, reporting the California average at $12,143 per pupil. This places California in 20th place among the states, which puts it in the front half of the pack.

To the uninitiated, $12,143 seems like a lot. In a classroom with 30 students, that would equate to well over $300,000. If you hired an absolutely first rate teacher at the very competitive rate of $150,000 per year in pay and benefits, for a ten month school year you would still have more than $15,000 per month for other expenses. Isn’t that enough to rent a classroom, buy books, and share costs for a few administrative staff?

Perhaps this explains why charter schools now attract 10 percent of California’s K-12 students. $10,000 per year per student – or $12,143 per year per student, as the case may be – is enough to build an effective educational business model.

This amount, around $12,000 per year per pupil, gets batted around a lot in the media. A Google search on the sum $12,143, paired with search terms “per pupil in California” yields first page citations in Patch, Times of San Diego, Orange County Register, Governing, and others including the prestigious Public Policy Institute of California. But even proponents of increasing spending per pupil acknowledge this number is low.

As the Larry Sand documents in a recent California Policy Center article, “After a six-day teacher strike in January 2019, the district and union settled on a contract that many questioned. Now, a year later, LAUSD officials admit to spending $18,788 per student. But in a mid-January interview with EdSource, school superintendent Austin Beutner indicated that the district gets just $16,402 from the state to educate each child.”

So what is the number? How much are California’s taxpayers spending per pupil? According to LAUSD itself, that district spends $18,788 per student.

The Ed Week compilation included the following clarification: “Captures factors such as teacher and staff salaries, classroom spending, and administration, but not construction or other capital [expenditures].”

What else may be not included in this number?

To get at this, state government experts were contacted at the California Dept. of Education, the California Dept. of Finance, and Ed Data, which is “a partnership of the California Department of Education, EdSource, and the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team/California School Information Services (FCMAT/CSIS).”

Speaking and corresponding with these experts raised as many questions as it answered. But here’s a basic formula that ought to lead to a calculation of per pupil education spending:

For the most recent available historical data, start with $72.4 billion in spending in 2017-18, an amount that is found on the Ed Data home page on their “Financial Data” tab:

This figure needs to be adjusted as follows:
– deduct pre-school, adult education, and community college spending,
– add the state’s annual CalSTRS contribution,
– add debt service on school bonds (or instead, add capital spending, but a lot of debt funds go into operating budgets (or “deferred maintenance” budgets) so not sure which to pick – it should be one or the other),
– deduct from student headcount all charter school attendees,
– deduct from total revenue all funds directed to charter schools,
– verify that $72.4 billion was the entire gross amount of incoming funds.

Only a few of these amounts are readily available. Official sources did offer much. For example, it is known that roughly 10 percent of all K-12 students are enrolled in charter schools, but determining what amount of total taxpayer funding goes into charter schools is not generally known, despite the unrelenting attacks by teachers unions that claim diverting funds to charter schools is the cause of their financial challenges.

Another known variable is how much the state contributed to CalSTRS, $2.8 billion, which can be found on the CalSTRS website in their 2019-20 Annual Budget (page 47). Expect that amount to increase in the coming years as CalSTRS attempts to dig out of an unfunded liability now totaling $73.7 billion (page 24).

Turning from historical data, which is three years behind, Governor Newsom’s 2020-21 budget claims “K-12 Education Spending per Pupil” will be $17,964. This is based on “ongoing per-pupil expenditures of Prop. 98 funds of $12,600 in 2020-21,” as well as additional per-pupil expenditures of $5,364 from other sources.

Not explicit in the Governor’s Budget Report on K-12 Education, but impossible to refute if the inputs they’re providing on pages 68-69 are correct, is that California’s taxpayers will be spending a total of $119.8 billion on K-12 6.7 million K-12 students. And it is reasonable to assume this does not include the CalSTRS contribution from the state. It is also reasonable to assume this doesn’t include capital spending. How much is that?

The best compiled information on capital spending, at least via bond financings, can be found on Ballotpedia’s “School Bond Elections in California” page, which reports on local and state school bond elections. According to their data, over the decade from 2010 through 2019, $76.7 billion in local school bonds were approved by voters, along with the $9.0 billion Prop. 51, approved by voters statewide in 2016. And then there are the older bonds, still outstanding. According to Ballotpedia, “from 1996 to 2006, California voters approved about $109 billion in school construction bonds at the state and local level.”

This yields impressive totals, especially when taking into account interest expense. A bond earning 5 percent, paid down over 30 years, will require total payments, interest and principle, of nearly double that much.  Figure that California’s taxpayers are currently paying at least $15 billion per year to finance currently outstanding school bonds, with more on the way.

Pulling this all together offers an interesting counterpoint to the popular $12,143 per student meme that’s making the rounds. In reality, total spending, adding Prop. 98 funds and other funds from the governor’s budget, along with the state’s CalSTRS payment and payment on school bond debt, can be estimated to be around $137.6 billion, which equates to $20,642 per pupil.

One must truly wonder what charter schools could do if they had access to all that money. They don’t, and proving that would go a long way towards debunking the narrative that charter schools are the cause of financial problems for traditional public schools. It would also, of course, document a reality that is inconvenient for advocates of ever higher K-12 education spending: spending for traditional public schools, once charter school allocations and enrollments are deducted from the calculation, are even greater than $20,642 per pupil.

Does it make sense to spend even more on our K-12 public school students, when there may be other reasons for the problems? What about restoring discipline in public schools, instead of applying racial quotas to how many students can be suspended or expelled? What about reforming union work rules such as were attempted in the Vergara case, rules governing tenure, layoff and dismissal criteria, so great teachers could be fairly compensated, good teachers could be retained, and poor teachers could be fired?

For that matter, why is there no discussion anymore about just issuing school vouchers, which would solve California’s public education challenges overnight?

Heck, what about solving the real fiscal challenge facing California’s public schools, by making teachers eligible for Social Security instead of pensions, and just rolling all of the CalSTRS assets into the Social Security fund?

Or what about outlawing the teachers unions, who have turned public education into their own private monopoly?

California’s voters should ask themselves: If you had to educate K-12 students, having them in your charge 180 days per year, how well could you do it if you were paid over $20,000 per year, per student?

This article originally appeared in the California Globe.

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The Premises of California’s Dysfunction

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Anyone unfamiliar with what is really going on in California would have listened to Governor Newsom’s State of the State address on February 12 and gotten the impression that things have never been better. Newsom’s opening set the tone for the rest of his 4,400 word monologue:

“By every traditional measure, the state of our state is strong. We have a record-breaking surplus. We’ve added 3 million jobs since the depths of the recession. Wages are rising. We have more scientists, researchers, and engineers, more Nobel laureates, and the finest system of higher education anywhere in the world.”

Newsom, to his credit, immediately qualified his sunny opening with a disclaimer that might be the understatement of the century, saying “But along with that prosperity and progress, there are problems that have been deferred for too long and that threaten to put the California dream out of reach for too many. We face hard decisions that are coming due.”

Ain’t that the truth. And Gavin Newsom, the political party he represents, and the ideology they’ve embraced, cannot possibly solve these “problems that have been deferred for too long.” First, because Newsom and his gang created the problems, and second, because the ideology they adhere to is based on premises that are both economically unsustainable and destined to eventually deliver not solutions, but tyranny.

Here are the three core premises of California’s dysfunction:

The Climate Emergency

Every policy in California must be ran through the filter of its “climate change” impact. At some point over the past 10-20 years the required “environmental impact” reports morphed into “climate change” impact reports. It is impossible to overstate the degree to which this has stunted economic opportunities and raised the cost of living in California, and there is no end in sight.

“Climate change” impact is the pretext for countless laws and regulations, along with endless litigation, and its reach expands every year. There is no aspect of life in California, almost no category of activity, that can escape monitoring. If what you do moves electrons or involves combustion, convection, emission, discharge, motion, extraction, construction, anything – than there is justification for “carbon accounting,” and into the breech ride the carbon accountants, the consulting experts, the bureaucrats, the attorneys, the regulators and the legislators. “Climate change” is the pretext for an entire parasitic industry, and there is no theoretical limit to the scope of its authority.

The problem with this premise, beyond the fact it justifies an ongoing and inexorable creep towards micromanaged tyranny, is that it can’t be challenged. To suggest there might be other political priorities, unintended consequences, or even to just ask for a cost/benefit analysis, is to be branded a “denier,” as if someone who doesn’t think the world is about to end via “climate change,” or just thinks the proposed solutions are ludicrous in addition to being tyrannical, is the moral equivalent of a holocaust denier.

The “climate emergency” is an explicitly fascist political ideology, according to at least two conventional definitions of fascism. It requires an economic model where corporate oligopolies act in junior partnership to an authoritarian government. At the same time, it justifies itself according to a moral framework that does not tolerate dissent and relies on fomenting panic and fear to secure popular support. There is nothing that escapes the authoritarian reach of “climate change” policies.

The entire premise, that “climate change” is an emergency and that no sacrifice is too great in order to stop it, is based on exaggerations and lies, spread by people motivated by power and profit. It is not enough to oppose the myriad policies justified by the “climate emergency.” This fundamental premise, that it is an emergency eclipsing all other political priorities, must be utterly broken.

Eliminating Privilege and Oppression

This mantra, repeated across the U.S. by the American Left, is especially entrenched in California. And the laws attendant to it, like those attendant to the “climate emergency,” continue to multiply with no end in sight.

Whether it’s women, transgenders, gays and lesbians, “people of color,” or any other identifiable group where some statistical disparity in their aggregate achievements can be identified, new laws are being passed to join well established laws, all designed to enforce equal outcomes.

All of this relies on a premise that has supposedly passed almost beyond debate, that “cisgender heteronormative white males” have engaged in systemic racism since the dawn of time against everyone who is not a “cisgender heteronormative white male,” and this explains every statistical disparity between their achievement and that of everyone else.

There is so much wrong and evil about this premise it is hard to pick where to begin. First of all, it probably makes sense to remind the purveyors of this nonsense that life on earth has never been fair, but when it comes to “inclusion and equity,” no culture on earth comes anywhere close to America.

Perhaps more people should say to anyone tempted to declare themselves a victim of systemic oppression, “too bad, and grow up, because the cure you are proposing is far worse than the disease.” Perhaps anyone who thinks they’ve got it so bad in the United States, much less California, is invited to return to their nations of origin, and see if they find themselves feeling more welcome, with more access to opportunity.

The problems facing California’s residents who are not “cisgender heteronormative white males” are made far more challenging by a Leftist establishment telling them their prospects are diminished by “systemic oppression” as by any actual oppression.

Join the military and get free college tuition when you’re discharged. Learn the plumbing trade and make $175,000 per year because there’s a shortage of plumbers. Quit pretending a degree in “ethnic (or whatever) studies” is marketable in the real world, and instead train to become a nurse and make $175,000 per year because there’s a shortage of nurses. Whoever you are: you’re not a victim, despite what you’re hearing from some blowhard who’s made a career of saying so.

Claiming “privilege and oppression” are “systemic” and that laws are necessary to stop it will literally destroy America. It will fracture our culture and further paralyze our economy. It is a lie based on biased, self serving facts and studies, and just as in the case with the “climate emergency,” it is used to justify a parasitic industry. It cannot be stopped by fighting the myriad and derivative battles over budgets and legislation. The root premise must be relentlessly rejected, and everyone, regardless of their possible “protected status,” must be recruited to join in this attack.

Capitalism is Evil, Long Live Capitalism

Into this broad category can be found most of the remaining flawed but fundamental premises of California’s ruling elite. In no particular order, here are the delusions and lies that derive from this impossible, contradictory, blatantly hypocritical premise:

It is possible to make it impossible for the free market to build anything affordable in California, thanks to crippling regulations and punitive fees, yet it is possible to spend even more per unit, using taxpayer money, to build government funded “affordable housing.”

It is possible to award pension benefits to state and local government employees that average literally three times (if not more) what private sector workers may receive from Social Security, and then, while attacking capitalist profiteers at every turn, and demanding more regulations and taxes to control them and make them pay their “fair share,” simultaneously claim that pension benefits are sustained by returns on smartly invested asset portfolios, returns that are only possible via profits.

It is necessary to curb the excesses of capitalism through expansive legislation and regulations, because capitalism is inherently oppressive to “marginalized communities” and “working families,” yet the ultimate victims of these laws and regulations are always the small family owned businesses and emerging innovative potential competitors to large companies, because they lack the financial resiliency to comply. Meanwhile, the large monopolistic corporations consolidate their positions in the market.

It is economically sustainable to curb development of land, energy, water and roads, in order to protect the environment, because the resulting scarcity creates an explosion in asset values. This in turn enables a financialization of California’s economy as people borrow on the artificially inflated collateral of their home equity. The increased consumer activity, debt fueled, bolsters corporate profits and investment portfolio returns. The bubble never pops.

The Consequences of Lies

Nearly everything California’s ruling elite does wrong derives from these three premises. The first two are never challenged, and the third is a paradox, barely understood but best summarized by this: Democrats, not Republicans, are the party supported by the financial sector and the super wealthy, and they are systematically exterminating the middle class, and making things harder, not easier, for low income communities.

One of the policies central to California’s oppressive dysfunction is so-called “densification” or urban containment. Rarely discussed holistically, it is foundational to what ails California, and it is a consequence of all three premises.

The policy of densification means that new cities and towns cannot be built outside of existing urban areas. New housing subdivisions cannot extend beyond the existing urban periphery. This is justified based on protecting the environment, as if 95 percent of California’s more than 160,000 square miles of land weren’t still rural. It is justified based on stopping “climate change,” as if vehicles weren’t becoming cleaner and greener every year, and as if jobs wouldn’t follow residents into new cities.

Densification is also justified based on combating “racism,” because if jobs follow residents to new communities outside the existing urban core, then somehow this means no jobs will remain for people still living there – who may be disproportionately represented by members of “disadvantaged communities.”

The economic premise behind densification, besides the rabid and cynical certainty that artificial scarcity causes asset bubbles which reward speculative investors and predatory home equity loan sharks, is that suburbs require roads which require “subsidies.” When making this argument, California’s ruling elites find useful and very idiotic support from libertarian dogmatists, who have made a lifestyle of living with paradoxical, self contradictory beliefs. “Let’s not subsidize the car,” is what these libertarians will smugly assert, hoping for a pat on the back from the progressives with whom they’ve found common ground. No, of course not. Let’s just subsidize light rail, trolleys, buses, and every other imaginable conveyance instead.

The wicked first cousin of Densification is “Inclusive Zoning,” is a policy that as well relies on all three of California’s dysfunctional premises. This policy, which like most leftist inspired policies, sounds so virtuous – “inclusive” – that only a heartless monster would oppose it.

Inclusive zoning takes the form of long-standing mandates to include subsidized “affordable housing” in virtually every housing development, and new mandates requiring cities and counties to approve “accessory dwelling units” inside any residential backyard bigger than a postage stamp. It is based on the fatally flawed premise that “disadvantaged communities” will suddenly be uplifted if they are able to live in subsidized units of housing in affluent neighborhoods.

Inclusive zoning is by its very nature consistent with the environmentally motivated policy of densification, since these mandated “affordable” units are smaller then the housing that surrounds them, consuming backyard lawns instead of “open space.” They are, as noted, also consistent with combating “oppression,” since lower income individuals will occupy these units.

California is Waging War on Working Californians

The most pernicious way in which inclusionary zoning follows from California’s dysfunctional premises, however, is in the economic realm.

What inclusionary zoning mandates allow is an invasion of predatory real estate speculators to pour into every tranquil, shady neighborhood in California, where they will encounter homes that are worth more demolished than left standing. They will raze, randomly, homes throughout these to-date intact neighborhoods, and then, relying tax incentives to fund the construction, they will replace these homes with fourplexes that will house low income residents living on taxpayer supported rent subsidies.

Densification and inclusionary zoning epitomize how California’s ruling elite is waging war against its own citizens – and that ruling class very explicitly includes Gavin Newsom.

These policies reflect a contempt for the middle class bordering on hatred. No fair minded person objects to people who look different or have different lifestyles living in their neighborhoods. What they object to is having their neighborhoods destroyed through densification, then filled up with new residents whose residences and rent payments are largely paid through higher taxes.

If you object to this because you worked hard to live in a nice neighborhood, too bad. It wasn’t hard work that got you there, it was “privilege.” And if you object because you don’t like seeing homes randomly demolished and replaced with apartments, too bad, you must be a “denier.” And if you think the economics are unsustainable – after all, at what percentage of tax subsidized construction of “affordable housing” and subsidized monthly rent do government budgets implode – too bad, because all the smart libertarians joined with all the smart progressives to do this to you.

As for the tony enclaves of California’s wealthiest? They litigate and lobby for exemptions to the rules they make the rest of us live by, and laugh all the way to the bank.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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When is Extremism Justified?

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It was him they’d come for, not only Jabez Stone. He read it in the glitter of their eyes and in the way the stranger hid his mouth with one hand. And if he fought them with their own weapons, he’d fall into their power; he knew that, thought he couldn’t have told you how. It was his own anger and horror that burned in their eyes; and he’d have to wipe that out or the case was lost.”
– The Devil and Daniel Webster, by Stephen Vincent Benet

This excerpt from Stephen Vincent Benet’s masterpiece offers a critical perspective on the nature of extremism. It is altogether justifiable to have an extreme reaction to an extreme problem, but if one descends to the same level of hatred and evil that inspires their oppressors, their fight loses its virtue. But can fate be reasonably expected to deliver a positive outcome merely because the good guys were more eloquent? Daniel Webster knew he could not overcome hatred with hatred, but his ability to persuade a jury of the damned to spare a man’s soul, while a powerful moral fable, is nonetheless fiction.

In the year when The Devil and Daniel Webster was written, 1937, ideological hatred was exploding into violence and war across the world. But unlike in Germany, where an entire population succumbed to the exhortations of a fascist demagogue, in America, the growing extremist militancy was attenuated by the calm leadership of FDR. The point here isn’t to defend FDR’s solutions nor to condemn them. Rather it is noteworthy that while worker grievances were addressed through what many still consider to have been a dangerous drift towards socialism, these policies were enacted in America without demagoguery, scapegoating or an epidemic of murderous violence. In Germany, the Nazis were also attentive to worker grievances. But their solutions came at horrific cost. Roosevelt, unlike Hitler, projected a kind persona. Instead of inflaming a nation, he healed it.

In our time there has been a relentless campaign by opponents of president Trump to paint him as another Hitler. Obviously Trump has done his part to feed this assault, since he’s all too willing to openly mock his detractors and rivals. Shifty Schiff, Nervous Nancy, Sleepy Joe, Crazy Bernie, Pocahontas, Mini-Mike, Cryin’ Chuck, Low-IQ Maxine, Crooked Hillary, Lyin’ Ted, Little Marco, Low Energy Bush, Leakin’ James, and so on. But the media, along with everyone else horrified by the Trump presidency, go way too far.

While President Trump isn’t afraid to utter divisive, politically incorrect statements, those represent only a small fraction of what he has to say. Some of his tweets are inflammatory. These tweets, along with out of context low-lights from spontaneous moments at his rallies, are replayed endlessly by the anti-Trump media. Never shown, unless you make the effort, are the rest of his tweets, the rest of his speeches, and the rest of his proclamations, which invariably are positive, uplifting, optimistic, and even – gasp – inclusive.

Trump’s recent state-of-the-union address gave Americans a glimpse of that side of him which the media never shows. But it’s Trump’s policies that ought to provide additional evidence that far from being the reincarnation of Hitler, he is a moderate centrist, violating as many libertarian pieties as leftist ones. Examples of this are plentiful. Investing in the inner cities, pushing for paid parental leave, passing “right-to-try” legislation, and championing infrastructure projects are all taken straight out of the Democrat’s playbook. Other policies advanced by Trump, such as common sense roll backs of environmental regulations and encouraging conventional energy development, are only controversial because the “consensus” pushed by the liberal elite had itself become extreme. In other areas, such as deescalating tensions with Russia and North Korea, and avoiding war with Iran, Trump’s actions are condemned as appeasement. Whatever they are, he’s no second coming of the Fuhrer.

But no matter what Trump does, the America Left condemns him as an authoritarian, a wannabe dictator. Their hatred of Trump, however, is what should be of concern. If Hillary Clinton had been elected, it would have meant an acceleration of every leftist project that had already acquired dangerous momentum during eight years of Obama’s presidency. With Trump, the Left encountered the first substantial resistance to their agenda in over a generation, and this is what guides their fury.

They’d better watch out. Trump is a pussycat compared to what comes next if the leftist agenda in America isn’t stopped in its tracks.

Americans of all stripes – let’s forego the obligatory itemization of identities and just go with “stripes” – are deciding they don’t want to live in a nation where foreigners outnumber natives in most cities and several states, and enable Democratic socialists to acquire a permanent electoral majority. They’re also tired of watching their jobs get exported at the same time as millions of welfare migrants get imported.

Americans of all stripes don’t want their children groomed in the public schools to consider sex to be a subjective individual choice, and they want to decide for themselves how to discuss sexuality with their young children.

Normal hard working Americans, whoever they are, don’t want – in the name of “inclusive zoning” – to have homeless people, including drug addicts, alcoholics, criminals, perverts and the insane corralled into backyard “mini-homes,” or into apartment buildings dropped randomly into neighborhoods of single family homes. They especially don’t want this to happen when their taxes will help pay for the construction and help pay the rents.

Common sense Americans don’t want to spend $6.00 per gallon for gasoline, or $1.0 million for a home on a lot so small you can’t fit a swing set in the back yard. They don’t want to have to take buses and “light rail” every time they need to go grocery shopping or drop their child off at soccer practice. They don’t want to spend their lives living paycheck to paycheck based on the preposterous theory that if they do these things, somehow the “climate” will no longer deliver cataclysmic storms, fires, and floods.

Fair minded Americans don’t want to have opportunities denied to themselves or their children because of the color of their skin. They don’t want to be pushed to the end of the line simply because they happen to be white or Asian, and get told this is necessary because of their privilege, or their “proximity” to privilege. No fair minded American, “privileged” or not, wants to get a job merely because of the color of their skin, or because of their “gender identity.”

Patriotic Americans don’t want to have to submit to “common sense” gun control legislation that solves nothing, but jeopardizes their ability to defend their homes and their freedom. God fearing Americans – and, presumably, atheists with even a bit of humanity – abhor late-term on-demand abortion. Watch a high resolution ultra-sound video of a 20 week old fetus trying unsuccessfully to dodge the abortionists blade. You’ll never be the same.

All of these policies, pushed relentlessly by the American Left, are offensive to the vast majority of Americans. The only reason the outrage isn’t universal is because the mainstream media lies about the extent of these problems and completely ignores the causes. Similarly, the online media monopolies censor – or “throttle down” – content that exposes the leftist agenda.

Donald Trump may not be another FDR, but if he got fair treatment from the media, his popularity would be rising even faster than it already is. Because he has brought the leftist agenda out of the shadows and into a public conversation.

Donald Trump is also no Daniel Webster. But if you watch his speeches and press conferences, you can see that he is almost always thoroughly enjoying himself. The fact that he has not succumbed to the hatred that consumes his critics is a big part of the reason they hate him more than ever.

America is very lucky that Donald Trump, a moderate centrist with common sense and a sense of humor came onto the scene when he did. Because the American people are not going to let their nation and their culture be destroyed. Absent Trump, or at the least, absent some progress stopping the leftist agenda, Americans will eventually fight the Left “with their own weapons.” Fighting extremism with extremism is a last resort, but “when in the course of human events” all else fails, virtue is put aside, and it becomes the tragic final option.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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Public Safety Compensation and Public Safety

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Public sector unions are by far the most powerful special interest in California. And they are united in their goal to pay themselves as much or more than public agencies can afford, which shields unionized public servants from the worst effects of the laws (which they almost always support) that have made California’s cost-of-living the highest in the nation. But there are also significant differences between the various public sector unions in California.

Whatever else one might say about public safety unions, they have not undermined the quality of their profession. To the extent public safety in California is compromised, for the most part that is caused by policies the public safety unions unsuccessfully opposed including Prop. 47, Prop. 57, AB 109, and AB 953.

This is in sharp contrast to California’s teachers unions, which by their opposition to charter schools and desperately needed union work rule reforms such as attempted in the Vergara lawsuit, make unconvincing their claims to care about results.

Any criticism of public safety unions should be in this context. Nonetheless, the case must be made that police and firefighter compensation in California has reached a level where at the least it is appropriate to replace their services whenever possible with less expensive solutions.

With respect to firefighters, an example of this can be found with private ambulance services which can, and often do, replace firefighter personnel to respond to medical emergencies. This solution can save municipalities millions of dollars, and can make economic sense without compromising the quality of service.

With respect to law enforcement, an example can be found in Newport Beach, where the issue is whether or not their harbor patrol requires deputy sheriffs, or if those services can be more efficiently performed by local law enforcement and city harbor patrol personnel. The financial impact of this choice is significant.

Using data available on Transparent California, according to analysis performed by local residents who know the names of the deployed personnel and could look each of them up individually, Harbor Patrol Officers and Harbor service workers earned, on average, total compensation in 2018 of $61,176. Even the park rangers employed by Newport Beach, which have “limited peace officer” status (including the power to make arrests) only averaged $84,740 in total compensation. This figure includes everything, base salary, overtime pay, current benefits and the employer’s pension payment.

By contrast, the same analysis showed the average total compensation of Orange County Harbor Patrol Officers assigned to Newport Harbor in 2018 was $291,571. Despite this amazing disparity in compensation, there is a strong case that the services of these Orange County Sheriffs are not required in Newport Harbor.

These figures are clearly debatable. Because most of California’s cities and counties (including Orange County) no longer include in their reports to Transparent California (or to the State Controller) a per employee cost of paying down their unfunded liability, Transparent California adds in their own estimate of that cost. In the case of Orange County, the unfunded liability is now $5.4 billion. Since continuing to fund and pay pensions depends on covering that liability, it’s hard to argue it doesn’t constitute part of total compensation. Also not added in these reports is the present value of the eventual cost for retiree health benefits.

Despite the particulars of this case, however, these personnel policies deserve urgent debate. Should sheriff deputies perform routine inspections and write up minor infractions? Should firefighters respond to medical emergencies? Why, when qualified specialists, often from private firms, can do this work just as well for less money?

Proponents of replacing county sheriffs with local employees make the following arguments. First, as documented by Frank Kim, the Executive Officer of Orange County, in a memorandum to the Board of Supervisors in August, 2018, only 3 percent of “hours spent in response to calls” in Newport Harbor were for criminal activities.” This means that 97 percent of the calls could have been handled by harbor service workers or limited peace officers employed by the City of Newport Beach at far less cost.

Another objection to replacing county sheriffs with local services is that the sheriffs “handle issues in the harbor, outside the harbor, and homeland security,” which supposedly means “the taxpayer is getting a bargain.” But in reality the Coast Guard, which berths a Coast Guard Cutter in Newport Harbor, is responsible for homeland security inside and outside the harbor.

As for other issues that may arise outside the harbor, such as assists for broken down vessels and sea tows, there are third party private companies that can (and do) handle calls for services outside the harbor. Moreover, the City of Newport Beach keeps three rescue boats outside the harbor during peak hours to handle any immediate shoreline calls.

Finally, there remains those 3 percent of calls that are for criminal activities, and clearly some of these criminal activities will involve situations that rangers with “limited peace officer” status will not be trained and equipped to handle. But the City of Newport Beach, at all times, has police officers stationed around the perimeter of the harbor. When very serious law enforcement issues arise, the City Harbor Patrol can simply pick up one or more of these police officers from the nearest dock to assist.

One barrier to pursuing more cost effective solutions to harbor services in Newport Beach is the fact that the Harbor Patrol Budget is funded by Orange County Parks, and is not part of the annual $700 million Orange County Sheriff’s budget. This takes away some of the incentive for the Sheriff’s agency to support more cost effective solutions. It is therefore up to the Orange County Supervisors to determine whether or not they can restore millions to their park budget by directing it to reimburse the City of Newport Beach for harbor security instead of continuing to pay the sheriff’s department for more expensive services.

One may have a civil debate over public safety compensation. There is a strong case to be made that police and sheriffs are not overpaid, since in California they face ongoing challenges to recruit new officers. If their pensions were reduced to a financially sustainable level, more police and sheriffs could be hired, and their base pay might even be increased without breaking municipal budgets. Hiring more officers would also reduce overtime expenses. But part of restoring financial health to California’s cities and counties requires making smart personnel decisions.

Hopefully California’s public sector unions – especially those which have not disgraced their professions – will begin to support letting go of some work assignments, when letting go makes financial and operational good sense.

This article originally appeared in the California Globe.

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Rescuing the GOP’s “Climate Policy” from the Theater of the Absurd

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For the fanatics on the far Left, and perhaps even for those deranged millions in the middle of the Democratic pack, there is nothing a Republican can say about “climate” that will impress them. Along with racism, xenophobia, and all the other assorted isms and phobias that allegedly afflict Republicans, acting like they care about the health of the planet has no credibility.

The Republicans, led by Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif), are trying anyway. As reported in The Hill and elsewhere, but without much fanfare, the GOP has released their own “climate plan” that is “meant to show voters the party cares about climate change.”

Predictable criticism came from the Left. As Vox reported “New conservative climate plans are neither conservative nor climate plans; they are mainly designed to protect fossil fuels.” But it also drew withering criticism from the Right. As reported in The Hill, “the conservative Club for Growth has pegged it as ‘stifling liberal environmental taxes, regulations, and subsidies’ while threatening to withhold support from any lawmaker who backs it.”

More in-depth analysis of what the Republicans are up to came from articles in Axios and Politico, and emphasized the party is trying to come up with a way to be recognized as concerned about the environment without going off the deep end. Of the four bills discussed, three were focused on carbon capture technology and infrastructure, mostly funded via tax credits, and one was designed to back up President Trump’s stated goal of supporting the “Trillion Trees” initiative.

The message the Republicans discussed trying to emphasize was to support a “clean environment” instead of focusing so much on “climate change.” It’s about time.

Returning to the Core Values of Environmentalism

There’s a lot to be praised about the GOP seizing some of the initiative with respect to environmental issues, but there is also a lot that can go wrong. For nearly twenty years, and with increasing intensity, the entire focus of the environmental movement has been on “climate change.” For anyone with a shred of scientific skepticism, or journalistic skepticism, or a love of freedom, or a basic sense of proportion, or common sense, or just a good bullshit detector, this has cost the environmentalist movement priceless credibility.

Does anyone who hasn’t already drank the Cool-Aid take seriously a movement that has to prop up a pampered teenage truant as oracle to the world’s elites, or organizes “die off” performative protests on the streets of European capitals, or, with straight faces, claims the world is going to come to an end in 12 years? Does anyone with a sense of history miss the connection between the “climate emergency,” complete with “dangerous,” “denier” scapegoats, propelled by literally billions of dollars being spent on corporate and government propaganda efforts, and not be reminded of how other nations and cultures have been down this authoritarian road before?

Environmentalism’s core values are sacred, and they have been profaned by corporations and governments channeling that calling into a climate crusade, with traditional environmentalists turned into willing accomplices. The professions of journalism and science have been corrupted, as has the nonprofit sector, and collectivists and capitalists alike are drinking at the trough. Meanwhile, the trajectory of progress on actual environmental challenges, from overpopulation to overfishing the oceans to wildlife poaching and wilderness preservation, have all been diminished.

This is why the trillion trees initiative is meaningful. It returns to the root benefits of environmentalism, and does so in a way that also gives a nod to the climate change zealots. The benefits of afforestation are undeniable, regardless of whether or not anyone believes in the dangers of anthropogenic CO2. Afforestation has been proven to restore water tables, reviving springs and rivers. It has been proven to bring back regular rainfall to regions that were becoming arid. Forests harbor wildlife and timber provides a cash crop. If it happens to sequester CO2, so much the better.

Find Projects and Policies That Are Good Anyway

This principle, to do environmentally sound projects that make sense anyway, regardless of the “carbon accounting,” is a pathway to credibility for the GOP, and even might point the way towards more of a national consensus on environmental policy. This is why it is such a good idea for the GOP to propose new research into developing biodegradable, nontoxic new types of plastic, and to research how to clean up the millions of tons of plastic that even now continues to pour out of Asian and African rivers into the world’s oceans.

Conversely, the GOP proposal to fund pilot plants designed to sequester CO2 gas in underground caverns is only slightly less ridiculous than California’s near miss regulation whereby they were going to require dairy cows to wear plastic bags attached to their anuses in order to capture the methane. California’s preposterous scheme, hatched by fanatics and glommed onto by “researchers” looking for a quick buck, at least had the virtue of only wasting millions of taxpayer dollars. Carbon sequestration schemes are on track to waste billions, to do, what? Pressurize every cave in America and remove how much many PPM of CO2 from the earth’s atmosphere? At what cost per PPM?

This is theater of the absurd. Maybe, maybe, sponsor research aimed at discovering how to convert CO2 directly into a fuel that maintains a solid or liquid form at room temperature. After all, trees do it. Otherwise, save the caves, and keep the bags off the dairy cows. It is, like so much “climate policy,” cronyism pretending to be part of a sacred mission. Some cronyism is inevitable. But at least get something out of cronyism that benefits society.

The GOP needs to aggressively promote climate change related proposals that make sense even if anthropogenic CO2 induced climate change really is the biggest hoax in human history. Because at the end of it all, we can then simply view “climate policy” as a means of capital formation to build things we needed anyway: seawalls, levees, reservoirs, desalination plants, nuclear power and other forms of clean energy; reforestation, sustainable fisheries, biodegradable plastic.

We can view these “good to do anyway” proposals as a way to fund scrubbers that will take the last bits of particulate matter out of the fossil fuel based energy economy, recognizing that even if CO2 isn’t harmful to humans, it is unhealthy to breathe carbon monoxide, lead, ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide, especially in cities across Asia and Africa that have barely begun to get that under control and are looking for solutions.

This is the clean technology revolution that makes sense. The GOP needs to boldly proclaim support for ways to help humanity complete the journey to a pollution free civilization, at the same time as they refuse to dismantle the capitalist system that gave us the wealth to pursue clean innovations; at the same time as they demand cost/benefit analysis on all “climate change” schemes; at the same time as they patiently remind anyone who will listen that fossil fuel use cannot possibly be precipitously eliminated; at the same time as they demand an end to the silencing and demonizing of rational contrarians who – imagine this – do not believe the world is about to come to an end.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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Tom Steyer Proposes to Triple the Minimum Wage

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Usually when billionaires run for political office, it is reasonable to expect they have a basic understanding of economics. In the case of presidential candidate Tom Steyer, however, one cannot make that leap of faith. Either Steyer has no understanding of economics whatsoever, which is extremely unlikely, or he does and does not care, or he is a pandering liar.

On February 9, speaking in South Carolina, Steyer said “he would call for a $22 per hour minimum wage if elected president.” This ups the ante on Steyer’s competitors in the Democratic presidential primary race, who are calling for an increase to $17 per hour.

Currently, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. If Tom Steyer were president, that rate would triple. Examining the consequences of such a move brings into sharp focus the dangerous absurdity of Democrat proposals. It offers additional reasons to vote for Republicans not necessarily because they are Republicans, but because they are not Democrats.

Shown on the chart below is the history of the federal minimum wage since it was first established in 1938. The first column shows the actual, nominal, minimum wage in each year the amount was raised. The middle column displays the consumer price index in each of those years. The column on the right then calculates what the minimum wage was historically, if expressed in 2019 inflation adjusted dollars.

As can be seen, if the minimum wage set back in 1938, 25 cents per hour, were expressed in inflation adjusted 2019 dollars, it would only be $4.50. Also evident is that the highest level the inflation adjusted minimum wage ever got was in 1979, when it was set – in 2019 dollars – at $10.86 per hour.

It’s just fine to argue about the need for some minimum wage. There are good arguments on both sides of that question. But what Tom Steyer is proposing is at best ridiculous, and he knows it. The obvious consequence of a minimum wage this high is that it makes it impossible for small businesses to stay profitable. The restaurant industry is a prime example. Large corporate chains automate and raise their prices. Small mom and pop restaurants go out of business.

In general, the job killing impact of an artificially high minimum wage is well documented based on the experiences in cities where it’s been implemented. Businesses that can’t adapt simply change jurisdictions or they close shop. And it’s not only these small businesses that become victims of a high minimum wage. These entry level jobs that go away create unemployment for people who would otherwise be entering the workforce and beginning to earn income and acquire skills.

Less obvious but equally significant is the impact on indexed wage scales. A relatively unknown but very common feature of collective bargaining agreements is that negotiated rates of pay are automatically increased when the minimum wage increases. Raising the minimum wage at any level, local, state or national, automatically raises wages across unionized workforces in the private and public sector. The ripple effect is therefore significant. When the minimum wage goes up, it drives consumer prices up across a host of industries that have to pass through the increased payroll costs, it can challenge the ability of businesses to survive if they have unionized workers at any level of wages, it drives businesses offshore, and it increases government payroll expenses leading to higher taxes.

What Steyer, the other Democratic candidates, and their union backers are doing is justified by a cost-of-living for Americans that has not been matched by increases in the average wage. That is a powerful argument, but artificially increasing wages will not solve that problem. When driving companies out of business, increasing unemployment, driving up consumer prices, and driving up tax rates is the consequence of increasing the minimum wage, then increasing the minimum wage is a fool’s errand. There is another solution, which is to lower the cost-of-living, and to lower the supply of labor.

America Needs to Lower the Cost-of-Living, Not Raise Minimum Wages

The sad irony is that these solutions used to be part of the union playbook. In past decades, unions fought for efficiently ran public infrastructure projects. These projects, often publicly funded but not rife with the padded budgets and paralytic bureaucratic delays that we see today, were vital elements in delivering a lower cost-of-living to the average American. In past decades, enabling infrastructure such as freeways, connector roads, reservoirs, aqueducts, water treatment plants, schools and parks were built swiftly and largely out of operating budgets. As a result, cities could expand, and homes were affordable, utility bills were affordable, and taxes were low.

Today these enabling infrastructure projects cost two to three times as much, and take five to ten times as long to complete. Most of the time they are funded via assessments on private homebuilders and developers, greatly increasing the market price of homes. If public funds are used, the money comes not out of operating budgets, but via public bond financing. What happened?

In the simplest terms possible, what happened is that America’s unions stopped fighting for the interests of all workers, and, for all practical purposes, joined forces with the corporations who used to be their adversaries. Oh sure, there are still strikes, and management and labor still quarrel, but they both are representing groups who have acquired and keep their privilege thanks to over-regulation. Unionized employees receive over-market wages, and corporations consolidate their market share against competitors with less financial resilience.

In the government sector, it’s even worse. Across blue-state America, unions control local and state elections, electing their own bosses. Why on earth would these union controlled bureaucracies fund infrastructure out of operating budgets, when instead they can use that money to pay themselves over-market wages, and fund pensions that are worth several times what Social Security benefits are worth to private sector workers?

Unions also used to fight the environmentalist lobby, but today, in addition to reaching a rapprochement with monopolistic corporations, they have allowed environmentalists to dictate their agenda. And why not? Environmentalists may only approve of one in five badly needed infrastructure projects, but who cares if each project is going to incur labor costs that are five times what they might have been if budgets weren’t padded?

This is easily exemplified by two California examples (of course), high speed rail and affordable housing. Construction of California’s “bullet train” still chugs along at a snails pace, but unionized workers have already been paid hundreds of millions, if not billions, to construct a small, overbuilt fraction of this useless monstrosity. But the environmentalists love it.

Similarly, the average cost of government funded affordable housing in California is now over $500,000 per apartment unit. But who cares? Environmentalist attorneys collect lawsuit settlements, public bureaucrats collect astronomical permit fees, consultants cash in on the required studies by experts, nonprofits build their empires, developers get subsidies and tax breaks, and unions operate under project labor agreements which means a swollen headcount and swollen wages.

Everybody wins except the normal, underprivileged, general public and the taxpayer.

What this points to is something bigger than unions, but very much related to the call for a higher minimum wage. What proponents of big government have done is over-regulate the economy, creating artificial scarcity which translates into an unaffordable cost-of-living for ordinary workers. They made housing unaffordable, then brought in government to build unaffordable “affordable housing.” And to cope with the high cost of housing and pretty much everything else that can’t be imported from overseas sweatshops, the bring in government to raise the minimum wage.

There was a time when unions performed an invaluable role in American society, because they stood up for all workers and supported policies that benefit all workers. This isn’t to say there weren’t aspects of unions that were and remain problematic. But on two key issues, unions have abandoned their own legacy and they have abandoned their membership.

Unions in America today no longer offer a counterbalance to the environmentalist lobby and as a result they no longer support vital enabling infrastructure. Even worse, they are demanding a massive increase to the minimum wage instead of calling for realistic restrictions on immigration, which would naturally force market rates for labor to rise.

Many high-profile Democrats in America, such as the bird brained Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, do not properly understand history or economics. Their ignorance can be forgiven, if nothing else.

Tom Steyer, however, does not get a pass. He knows exactly what he’s doing. And while he will never, ever be president – and he knows that, too – the hundreds of millions he’s investing in the 2020 election will influence countless voters to vote against the interests of their own fortunes as well as the fortunes of this nation.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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California’s Progressive War on Suburbia

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For three years in a row, California’s progressive lawmakers have attempted to legislate higher density housing by taking away the ability of cities and counties to enforce local zoning laws. And for the third year in a row, the proposed law, Senate Bill 50, was narrowly defeated. But eventually, inevitably, something like SB 50 is going to passed into law.

In opposition were homeowners who understandably don’t want their single family home neighborhoods subjected to random demolitions in order to replace single family homes with construction subsidized fourplexes to be filled with rent subsidized tenants. These homeowners, and the local elected officials who represent them, were joined by “housing justice advocates” who claimed the law didn’t adequately address the gentrification effect, whereby higher density developments often displace existing residents to construct luxury condominiums that only the wealthy can afford.

There’s a lot going on here, and it seems that very little in the way of analysis can support a dogmatic ideological perspective. For example, from a property rights perspective, you can argue that people who purchase homes have a right to expect the zoning density of the neighborhood to be respected, since that’s what they relied on when they invested their life savings and lifetime earnings. But a property rights perspective might also have one argue that each individual home owner has the right to do whatever they wish with their property, even if that means demolishing the home to construct a multi-story apartment building. These unresolved and conflicting interpretations of property rights prevent consensus and delay action.

And if some ideological dogmas lend themselves to contradictory interpretations, others simply defy reality entirely. Some of the housing justice advocates believe that providing shelter is a human right. For them, mandating taxpayer subsidized “affordable housing” construction, and taxpayer subsidized rent, is the only solution to California’s housing shortage and affordability crisis, and the sooner we get busy, the better. This unrealistic extension of human rights attracts opposition, if not ridicule, and in any case is impossibly expensive.

But perhaps the worst of the ideological dogmas that prevents rapid solutions to the housing challenges facing Californians is environmentalist values taken to extremes. The practical impact of regulations attendant to environmentalist values – from CEQA reporting requirements and CEQA lawsuits to burdensome and expensive building codes – is to make housing construction unprofitable for anything that might be considered affordable to the average Californian.

Environmentalist ideology hasn’t just made construction costs unaffordable, it has made land costs unaffordable as well, by passage of environmentalist inspired laws that strictly limit the amount of raw land that can get approved for new home construction. Around every city in California, with varying degrees of enforcement, “urban containment” boundaries have been established. Sometimes these boundaries serve important goals; to protect prime farmland, or to preserve important ecosystems such as wetlands for migratory birds. But it seems that almost all open land, everywhere within California’s vastness, is off limits to developers because of environmentalists.

California’s Regulations Destroyed Affordability

The problem with SB 50, or any eventual legislation that mandates higher housing density, is that without reforms to the laws that have made construction of affordable housing unprofitable, the only housing that will ever get built will be high-end homes by private investors, or housing that will require government subsidies both to construct and for the renters to be able to afford to live in them. This is not sustainable. It costs too much, and it takes too long. And it sets up a dangerous bifurcated society, where forcibly integrated into residential single family neighborhoods, randomly situated pretty much anywhere, are apartment buildings populated by residents receiving taxpayer funded rent subsidies.

There’s no doubt that some legislation may have to occur to selectively increase housing density. When a bill like SB 50 returns, which could be any day, certain modifications could help. In particular, SB 50 specified where state law could preempt local zoning, and included in “job-rich, good schools areas.” This is “inclusionary zoning” at its ostensibly high-minded, vindictive worst. The bill’s authors made this provision without any reference to whether or not “job-rich, good schools areas” are in parts of town that ought to naturally convert to higher density. Instead, the message seems to be “you’ve managed to maintain a prosperous and stable community with good schools and jobs, so into that community, we’re going to subsidize the entrance of predatory investors, who will purchase and demolish homes that come onto the market, replace them with apartments, and fill those apartments with people who never had to face down the astronomical mortgages that all you residents shouldered in order to have the right to live here.”

This is wrong. It destroys the incentive for anyone to ever want to pay extra to live in a decent neighborhood. Equally important, it destroys the incentive for low income individuals to work hard and aspire to move to a better neighborhood. And to be clear: this provision would never impact truly wealthy neighborhoods. Those people can afford attorneys to tie development proposals up in knots for years, SB 50 or not. This provision attacks California’s middle class. As usual. Delete it.

On the other hand, within the urban core and on properties with frontage along major boulevards, it is an unfortunate reality for anyone still living there in single family homes that their property is doomed to transition. In the past, that would be accomplished because the value of a few of these properties, consolidated and rezoned for a large multi-family building, would make it a lucrative deal for the sellers. Now, however, the business model is broken. Not only has the impact of CEQA and overdone building codes raised costs, but the resultant entrance of public financing into the equation has made project labor agreements elevate the total project cost still further. The relatively recent entrance of powerful “nonprofit” corporations into the subsidized housing market has padded total project budgets and increased costs even more.

For these reasons, mandating densification, however better tuned the rules eventually turn out, is not enough. The entire economic landscape requires revision.

Rewriting SB 50 to Recognize Economic Reality

It is possible to increase the supply of affordable market rate housing without involving the government and taxpayers in the actual construction funding. It is possible as well to increase the supply of housing in a manner that allows the developers and landlords to earn a decent return on investment without involving the government and taxpayers in funding rent subsidies. Therefore, the next version of SB 50 might recognize and account for the following factors:

  • Abandon “inclusive zoning” aimed at integrating subsidized low income residents into middle class neighborhoods via massive taxpayer expenditures.
  • Restrict mandated higher density zoning to the core urban areas in California and along major traffic arteries. One absolute set of governing criteria should apply everywhere.
  • Treat every county and city exactly the same, instead of allowing select counties and cities to take longer to come up with their own plans.
  • Repeal or significantly reform the California Environmental Quality Act.
  • Repeal energy neutral mandates and assorted other unwarranted environmentalist inspired building code regulations that add costs to home construction.
  • Set a maximum period of time within which building permits can be granted, and set a maximum building fee at $10,000 per home/unit (or less).
  • Streamline the building permit process to make it easier, not harder, for developers to acquire permits. Look to Texas for guidance.
  • Ban project labor agreements and require open bidding processes for public works projects.
  • Restore public funding to streets and connector roads instead of charging developer fees which are then reflected in much higher home prices.
  • Repeal laws designed to prevent reasonable expansion of the urban footprint. Allow housing developments again on open land.

These and other changes would make it possible again for private homebuilders to profitably construct affordable housing. Redirecting public money into constructing enabling infrastructure would take additional financial pressure off of home builders as well as home buyers. That worked in the 1960s and 1970s in California, and it still works in other states. The overall cost of increased public investment in infrastructure is less, perhaps far less, than the cost of taxpayers subsidizing the construction, and then subsidizing the rent in perpetuity, for literally millions of units of housing.

There is a war on suburbia being waged in California. This ideological battle, where suburbanites are stigmatized as classist, privileged, and environmentally destructive, is utterly unfounded. Suburbs are where a majority of Americans prefer to raise their families. And not these new suburbs with a dozen “single family dwellings” per acre. Spacious, beautiful suburbs where homes sit on lots of at least 6,000 square feet; suburbs where the homes themselves might actually be smaller and more affordable, once the economic hindrances to building them are removed via legislative reforms.

The arrogance of environmentalists who believe suburbs to be a planetary abomination must be called out for what it is – extremism completely unjustified by reality. Everything, from cars to energy to building materials, are becoming clean and sustainable. And there’s plenty of open land in California to spare a few thousand more square miles for new human settlement. At the least, if environmentalists are serious about saving California’s ecosystems, they might stop making common cause with the open borders lobby, and they might endorse nuclear power. Until then, they are transparently hypocritical.

This article originally appeared in the California Globe.

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Racism in America Today

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AUDIO:  A discussion on the very sensitive issue of racism in America, and the Democratic party strategy that depends on portraying America as a racist nation – 8 minutes on KNRS Salt Lake City – Edward Ring on the Rod Arquette Show.