Written by Michael Palomba
It’s no secret that California suffers from a major poverty problem. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, California has the highest poverty rate of any state in the country at a whopping 18.2%.
However, this isn’t the only area where California is doing worse than other states. Crime, electricity prices, rent, gas prices, and overall cost of living are also on the rise. One source describes California’s poverty woes as “poverty by design.”
At one time, California was a reliably red state. But in 1988, California started leaning left for various reasons, including a surge of Hispanic and Asian voters who opposed Republicans’ stance on immigration. The results of the Democratic surge have been utterly disastrous in virtually every domain.
This is because, for decades, Democratic leadership in California has been ignoring basic economic principles to implement a “progressive” agenda.
The gas tax is a prominent example of Democratic policies pushing people into poverty. Progressive Democrats have been trying to increase the number of hybrid and electric vehicles on the road for years, and one way they’ve done this is through tax incentives.
Putting aside the tax incentives and their economic consequences, the increase of electric and hybrid vehicles creates a domino effect. First, the number of gas and diesel vehicles sold decreases, which means the number of people getting gas decreases as well. Consequently, the revenue generated from the gas tax decreases because less people are paying it. Logically, it would make sense to reprioritize spending, but instead Democrats are imposing huge increases to the gas tax.
In November 2017, SB1 took effect, which imposed a 12-cent-per-gallon tax on gasoline. It also added new license fees for vehicles—disproportionately harming poorer Californians. Democratic lawmakers have decided that the right way to offset the costs of their push for electric vehicles is to increase costs for those who don’t drive these [more expensive] vehicles. Many of these same people are those already struggling to pay California gas prices, which are among the highest in the country.
Progressive land use and environmental policies also contribute to the high poverty and homeless rates, which are—you guessed it—the highest in the nation. These “progressive” policies make it almost impossible for developers to bring affordable housing to the market.
The San Francisco Chronicle provides a great analogy for this: “Imagine government regulations making it so expensive to build cars that automobile manufacturers could only earn a profit by selling luxury vehicles. That will give you an idea of what progressive politicians have done to housing development in California.”
Yet another progressive policy that will further affect poverty in California was recently signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom. This bill brings back the controversial individual mandate, an Obama-era policy that penalizes those who do not have health insurance.
This fine typically affects those earning less than $50,000, which would be people already being subjugated by the aforementioned expenses, making it more difficult for them to afford health insurance in the first place. It really is adding insult to injury when it comes to California Democrats and their policies harming working class Californians.
