“Through love of having
children we're going to take over."
Augustin Cebada, Information Minister of Brown Berets, militant
para-military soldiers of Aztlan shouting at U.S. citizens at an Independence
Day rally in Los Angeles, 7/4/96
“The
children of illegal aliens are commonly known as “anchor babies,” as they
anchor their illegal alien and noncitizen parents in the U.S. There are at least 4.5
million anchor babies in the country, a population
that exceeds the total number of annual American
births.” JOHN BINDER
“As Breitbart News recently
reported, there are more anchor baby births in the Los Angeles, California
metro area than the total U.S. births in 14 states and the District of
Colombia. Every year, American taxpayers are billed about $2.4 billion to
pay for the births of illegal aliens.” JOHN BINDER
‘Unbridled Immigration,
Legal and Illegal, Is Taking the Country Down’
This annual
income for an impoverished American family is $10,000 less than the more than
$34,500 in federal funds which are spent on each unaccompanied minor border
crosser.
A study by Tom Wong of the University of California at San
Diego discovered that more than 25 percent of DACA-enrolled illegal aliens in
the program have anchor babies. That totals about 200,000 anchor babies who are
the children of DACA-enrolled illegal aliens. This does not include the anchor
babies of DACA-qualified illegal aliens. JOHN BINDER
Every Legal is one paycheck and One Hundred Illegals away
from homelessness…. a rape, murder or
molestation!
NANCY PELOSI’S VISION OF AMERICA: 49 MORE MEXIFORNIAS AND
A 50 STATE EXPANDED ANCHOR BABY WELFARE STATE
FROM THE MAGAZINE
Winter 2018
California, Poverty Capital
Why are so many people poor in the Golden State?Winter 2018
California
Economy, finance, and budgets
California—not Mississippi, New Mexico, or West Virginia—has the highest poverty rate in the United States. According to the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure—which accounts for the cost of housing, food, utilities, and clothing, and which includes noncash government assistance as a form of income—nearly one out of four Californians is poor. Given robust job growth in the state and the prosperity generated by several industries, especially the supercharged tech sector, the question arises as to why California has so many poor people, especially when the state’s per-capita GDP increased roughly twice as much as the U.S. average over the five years ending in 2016 (12.5 percent, compared with 6.27 percent).
It’s not as if California policymakers have neglected to wage war on poverty. Sacramento and local governments have spent massive amounts in the cause, for decades now. Myriad state and municipal benefit programs overlap with one another; in some cases, individuals with incomes 200 percent above the poverty line receive benefits, according to the California Policy Center. California state and local governments spent nearly $958 billion from 1992 through 2015 on public welfare programs, including cash-assistance payments, vendor payments, and “other public welfare,” according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Unfortunately, California, with 12 percent of the American population, is home today to roughly one in three of the nation’s welfare recipients. The generous spending, then, has not only failed to decrease poverty; it actually seems to have made it worse.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, some states—principally Wisconsin, Michigan, and Virginia—initiated welfare reform, as did the federal government under President Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress. The common thread of the reformed welfare programs was strong work requirements placed on aid recipients. These overhauls were widely recognized as a big success, as welfare rolls plummeted and millions of former aid recipients entered the workforce. The state and local bureaucracies that implement California’s antipoverty programs, however, have resisted pro-work reforms. In fact, California recipients of state aid receive a disproportionately large share of it in no-strings-attached cash disbursements. It’s as if welfare reform passed California by, leaving a dependency trap in place. Immigrants are falling into it: 55 percent of immigrant families in the state get some kind of means-tested benefits, compared with just 30 percent of natives, according to City Journal contributing editor Kay S. Hymowitz.
Self-interest in the social-services community may be at work here. If California’s poverty rate should ever be substantially reduced by getting the typical welfare client back into the workforce, many bureaucrats could lose their jobs. As economist William A. Niskanen explained back in 1971, public agencies seek to maximize their budgets, through which they acquire increased power, status, comfort, and job security. In order to keep growing its budget, and hence its power, a welfare bureaucracy has an incentive to expand its “customer” base—to ensure that the welfare rolls remain full and, ideally, growing. With 883,000 full-time-equivalent state and local employees in 2014, according to Governing, California has an enormous bureaucracy—a unionized, public-sector workforce that exercises tremendous power through voting and lobbying. Many work in social services.
Further contributing to the poverty problem is California’s housing crisis. Californians spent more than one-third of their incomes on housing in 2014, the third-highest rate in the country. A shortage of housing has driven prices ever higher, far above income increases. And that shortage is a direct outgrowth of misguided policies. “Counties and local governments have imposed restrictive land-use regulations that drove up the price of land and dwellings,” explains analyst Wendell Cox. “Middle income households have been forced to accept lower standards of living while the less fortunate have been driven into poverty by the high cost of housing.” The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), passed in 1971, is one example; it can add $1 million to the cost of completing a housing development, says Todd Williams, an Oakland attorney who chairs the Wendel Rosen Black & Dean land-use group. CEQA costs have been known to shut down entire home-building projects. CEQA reform would help increase housing supply, but there’s no real movement to change the law.
Extensive environmental regulations aimed at reducing carbon-dioxide emissions make energy more expensive, also hurting the poor. On some estimates, California energy costs are as much as 50 percent higher than the national average. Jonathan A. Lesser of Continental Economics, author of a 2015 Manhattan Institute study, “Less Carbon, Higher Prices,” found that “in 2012, nearly 1 million California households faced ‘energy poverty’—defined as energy expenditures exceeding 10 percent of household income. In certain California counties, the rate of energy poverty was as high as 15 percent of all households.” A Pacific Research Institute study by Wayne Winegarden found that the rate could exceed 17 percent of median income in some areas. “The impacts on the poorest households are not only the largest,” states Winegarden. “They are clearly unaffordable.”
Looking to help poor and low-income residents, California lawmakers recently passed a measure raising the minimum wage from $10 an hour to $15 an hour by 2022—but a higher minimum wage will do nothing for the 60 percent of Californians who live in poverty and don’t have jobs, and studies suggest that it will likely cause many who do have jobs to lose them. A Harvard study found evidence that “higher minimum wages increase overall exit rates for restaurants” in the Bay Area, where more than a dozen cities and counties, including San Francisco, have changed their minimum-wage ordinances in the last five years. “Estimates suggest that a one-dollar increase in the minimum wage leads to a 14 percent increase in the likelihood of exit for a 3.5-star restaurant (which is the median rating),” the report says. These restaurants are a significant source of employment for low-skilled and entry-level workers.
Apparently content with futile poverty policies, Sacramento lawmakers can turn their attention to what historian Victor Davis Hanson aptly describes as a fixation on “remaking the world.” The political class wants to build a costly and needless high-speed rail system; talks of secession from a United States presided over by Donald Trump; hired former attorney general Eric Holder to “resist” Trump’s agenda; enacted the first state-level cap-and-trade regime; established California as a “sanctuary state” for illegal immigrants; banned plastic bags, threatening the jobs of thousands of workers involved in their manufacture; and is consumed by its dedication to “California values.” All this only reinforces the rest of America’s perception of an out-of-touch Left Coast, to the disservice of millions of Californians whose values are more traditional, including many of the state’s poor residents.
California’s de facto status as a one-party state lies at the heart of its poverty problem. With a permanent majority in the state senate and the assembly, a prolonged dominance in the executive branch, and a weak opposition, California Democrats have long been free to indulge blue-state ideology while paying little or no political price. The state’s poverty problem is unlikely to improve while policymakers remain unwilling to unleash the engines of economic prosperity that drove California to its golden years.
Wealth concentration increases in US.
American
middle class is officially declared dead and buried!
*
*
The latest research on wealth inequality by University of
California economics professor Gabriel Zucman underscores one of the key social
and economic trends since the global financial crisis of 2008. Those at the
very top of society, who benefited directly from the orgy of speculation that
led to the crash, have seen their wealth accumulate at an even faster rate,
while the mass of the population has suffered a major decline.
*
The past 40 years have seen the consolidation of a plutocratic
elite, which has subordinated every aspect of American society to a single
goal: amassing ever more colossal amounts of personal wealth. The top one
percent have captured all of the increase in national income
over the past two decades, and all of the increase in national
wealth since the 2008 crash.
*
“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican
alike, has become a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world
hell-holes. This is the way a great country is raided by its elite.”
---- Karen McQuillan AMERICAN THINKER
DEMOCRAT CONTROLED AMERICAN
CITIES IN CRISIS
LOS ANGELES,
MEXICO’S SECOND LARGEST CITY and MEXICAN MURDER CAPITAL OF AMERICA
*
"It was instead, downtown Los
Angeles, Calif., although the scene
was recreated in numerous other cities around the country with substantial
Mexican populations. Hordes of Mexican expatriates, many here illegally,
were protesting the very U.S. immigration laws they were violating
with impunity. They found it offensive and a violation of
their rights that the U.S. dared to have immigration laws to
begin with."
*
Jose Pescador Osuna, Mexican Consul General We are practicing "La Reconquista" in California."
*
Aztlan's goal, known as La reconquista, is to cede and take over the entirety of the southern and western states by any means necessary and impose a Communist militant dictatorship. President Bush's blanket amnesty program goes a long way to helping the extremists achieve their aim.
*
ICE ‘Raging Bull’ Operation Leads to Arrest
of 267 MS-13 Gang Members in Los Angeles
*
The
Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates that California spends $22
billion on government services for illegal aliens, including welfare,
education, Medicaid, and criminal justice system costs.
*
JUDICIAL WATCH
Illegal Immigration Costs U.S. Taxpayers a Stunning $134.9 Billion
a Year
*
In 1960,
according to a USC demographic study, fewer than 10% of the people in the
Los Angeles County area were Latino. By 2008, according to federal census
estimates, almost half were Latino. Roughly the same was true in the city
of Los Angeles.
*
"It extends to each
issue the Democrats embrace. Every city that has come under Democrat control is
proof positive that instead of raising the standard of living for the
occupants, the city falls to crime, gangs, and drugs. In fact,
"America is awash with troubled, dysfunctional cities that have been
electing Democrat
Party mayors for decades." EILEEN F TOPLANSKY
Ready for the next 5
million illegals getting ready to enter the U.S. in 2019?
Gallup put out a poll last
week, finding that five million Latin Americans plan to cross into the U.S.
this year alone. And the total number who plan to enter the U.S., either this
year, or later, is 42 million. The U.S. admits a million legal
immigrants each year from all countries. This new survey
shows that at least four million of that five million are
planning to enter illegally, most likely by crossing the border. That's a human
tide.
And the case for President
Trump declaring an emergency and building a wall instead of bargaining with an
unwilling Congress convinced there's no crisis has just gotten that much
stronger.
Here's
a good question about caravans: How many more are coming?
Gallup
asked the whole population of Latin America. There are 33 countries in Latin
America and the Caribbean. Roughly 450 million adults live in the region.
Gallup asked them, "Would
you like to move to another country permanently if you could?"
A
whopping 27% said "yes."
So
this means roughly 120 million would like to migrate somewhere.
The
next question Gallup asked was, "Where would you like to move?"
Of
those who want to leave their Latin American country permanently, 35% said they want to go to the
United States.
The Gallup analytics estimate is that 42
million want to come to the U.S.
That is one hell of a big
number, particularly since much of the data suggest that the U.S. already
houses some 30 million illegal immigrants. Four or five million more will
increase the illegal population by 12% to 17% in just one year, something that
will make assimilation for migrants already here in migrant enclaves that
much harder. Migrant enclaves already are at the top of the U.S. lists for
bad places to live - 10 of the 50 worst places in America to live
according to this
list are in California, and all of them are famous for their
illegal populations. The newcomers will need social
services, given that most will not have the requisite language,
education or skills to succeed here. Many will be unwed mothers, which
ensures even here that they will be assimilating into the underclass. The
cost to taxpayers to feed, house, educate, medically treat and jail the newcomers
will run into billions.
And sure enough, the
Border Patrol does say that illegal border crossings are up, way up,
and hitting
record numbers, according to the Washington Post. The human tide has started.
Gallup's CEO does ask an
intelligent question in the wake of this new reality:
Most
U.S. citizens like me just want to know the plan. What is the 10-year plan? How
many, exactly whom and what skills will they bring? What do we want? Answer
these questions, and the current discussion can be resolved.
Keep
in mind that it's not only 330 million Americans who are wondering -- so are 42
million seekers from Latin America.
I can add that Latin America
isn't the only place where people are contemplating entering the U.S.
illegally. The African and Asian continents are also loaded with aspiring
illegal immigrants.
Democrats, of course are
never going to answer that question.
But it needs answering,
because the human waves are coming.
Gallup didn't ask Latin
Americans why they might be planning to come now in such great
numbers this year, but it's pretty obvious that one answer is that there is an
ongoing border wall debate, and the talk just keeps going.
So long as the U.S. is
enmired in Democrats' blockage of any funds for a border wall, yet the talk
goes on of building, the message to illegal migrants is to move. Get in before
the wall gets built while the Democrats are still arguing. This is the window.
Don't wait for the border wall to get built. Get in under the wire.
That very dynamic is a good
argument for why President Trump should just skip the shenanigans with the
Democrats, declare an emergency, and build the wall. The longer this drags
on the more the human waves are going to build. And as Gallup reports, we're
looking at a tsunami.
CALIFORNIA'S POPULATION
TO DOUBLE from ILLEGALS along with their CRIME RATES!
Times Staff Writers
July 10, 2007
Over the next
half-century, California's population will explode by nearly 75%, and Riverside
will surpass its bigger neighbors to become the second most populous county
after Los Angeles, according to state Department of Finance projections
released Monday. California will near the 60-million mark in 2050, the study
found, raising questions about how the state will look and function and where all
the people and their cars will go. Dueling visions pit the iconic California
building block of ranch house, big yard and two-car garage against more dense,
high-rise development. But whether sprawl or skyscrapers win the day, the
Golden State will probably be a far different and more complex place than it is
today, as people live longer and Latinos become the dominant ethnic group,
eclipsing all others combined. Some critics forecast disaster if gridlock and
environmental impacts are not averted. Others see a possible economic boon,
particularly for retailers and service industries with an eye on the state as a
burgeoning market. "It's opportunity with baggage," said Jack Kyser,
chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., in
"a country masquerading as a state. "Other demographers argue that
the huge population increase the state predicts will occur only if officials
complete major improvements to roads and other public infrastructure. Without
that investment, they say, some Californians would flee the state. If the
finance department's calculations hold, California's population will rise from
34.1 million in 2000 to 59.5 million at the mid-century point, about the same
number of people as Italy has today. And its projected growth rate in those 50
years will outstrip the national rate — nearly 75% compared with less than 50%
projected by the federal government. That could translate to increased
political clout in Washington, D.C. Southern California's population is
projected to grow at a rate of more than 60%, according to the new state
figures, reaching 31.6 million by mid-century. That's an increase of 12.1
million over just seven counties. L.A. County alone will top 13 million by
2050, an increase of almost 3.5 million residents. And Riverside County — long
among the fastest-growing in the state — will triple in population to 4.7
million by mid-century. Riverside County will add 3.1 million people, according
to the new state figures, eclipsing Orange and San Diego to become the second
most populous in the state. With less expensive housing than the coast,
Riverside County has grown by more than 472,000 residents since 2000, according
to state estimates. No matter how much local governments build in the way of
public works and how many new jobs are attracted to the region — minimizing the
need for long commutes — Housing figures that growth will still overwhelm the
area's roads. USC Professor Genevieve Giuliano, an expert on land use and
transportation, would probably agree. Such massive growth, if it occurs, she
said, will require huge investment in the state's highways, schools, and energy
and sewer systems at a "very formidable cost."If those things aren't
built, Giuliano questioned whether the projected population increases will occur.
"Sooner or later, the region will not be competitive and the growth is not
going to happen," she said.If major problems like traffic congestion and
housing costs aren't addressed, Giuliano warned, the middle class is going to
exit California, leaving behind very high-income and very low-income residents.
"It's a political question," said Martin Wachs, a transportation
expert at the Rand Corp. in Santa Monica. "Do we have the will, the
consensus, the willingness to pay? If we did, I think we could manage the
growth. "The numbers released Monday underscore most demographers' view
that the state's population is pushing east, from both Los Angeles and the Bay
Area, to counties such as Riverside and San Bernardino as well as half a dozen
or so smaller Central Valley counties. Sutter County, for example, is expected
to be the fastest-growing on a percentage basis between 2000 and 2050, jumping
255% to a population of 282,894 , the state said. Kern County is expected to
see its population more than triple to 2.1 million by mid-century. In Southern
California, San Diego County is projected to grow by almost 1.7 million
residents and Orange County by 1.1 million. Even Ventura County — where voters
have imposed some limits on urban sprawl — will see its population jump 62% to
more than 1.2 million if the projections hold. The Department of Finance
releases long-term population projections every three years. Between the last
two reports, number crunchers have taken a more detailed look at California's
statistics and taken into account the likelihood that people will live longer,
said chief demographer Mary Heim. The result? The latest numbers figure the
state will be much more crowded than earlier estimates (by nearly 5 million)
and that it will take a bit longer than previously thought for Latinos to
become the majority of California's population: 2042, not 2038. The figures
show that the majority
of California's growth
will be in the Latino population, said
Dowell Myers, a professor
of urban planning and demography
at USC, adding that
"68% of the growth this decade will be
Latino, 75% next and 80%
after that."That should be a wake-up call for voting Californians, Myers
said, pointing out a critical disparity. Though the state's growth is young and
Latino, the majority of voters will be older and white — at least for the next
decade." The future of the state is Latino growth," Myers said.
"We'd sure better invest in them and get them up to speed. Older white
voters don't see it that way. They don't realize that someone has to replace
them in the work force, pay for their benefits and buy their house."
Adios,
Sanctuary La Raza Welfare State of California
A fifth-generation Californian laments his state’s ongoing economic collapse.
By Steve Baldwin
American Spectator, October 19, 2017
What’s clear is that the producers are leaving the state and the takers are coming in. Many of the takers are illegal aliens, now estimated to number over 2.6 million. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates that California spends $22 billion on government services for illegal aliens, including welfare, education, Medicaid, and criminal justice system costs.
A fifth-generation Californian laments his state’s ongoing economic collapse.
By Steve Baldwin
American Spectator, October 19, 2017
What’s clear is that the producers are leaving the state and the takers are coming in. Many of the takers are illegal aliens, now estimated to number over 2.6 million. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates that California spends $22 billion on government services for illegal aliens, including welfare, education, Medicaid, and criminal justice system costs.
BLOG: MANY DISPUTE CALIFORNIA’S EXPENDITURES
FOR THE LA RAZA WELFARE STATE IN MEXIFORNIA JUST AS THEY DISPUTE THE NUMBER OF
ILLEGALS. APPROXIMATELY HALF THE POPULATION OF CA IS NOW MEXICAN AND BREEDING
ANCHOR BABIES FOR WELFARE LIKE BUNNIES. THE $22 BILLION IS STATE EXPENDITURE
ONLY. COUNTIES PAY OUT MORE WITH LOS ANGELES COUNTY LEADING AT OVER A BILLION
DOLLARS PAID OUT YEARLY TO MEXICO’S ANCHOR BABY BREEDERS. NOW MULTIPLY THAT BY
THE NUMBER OF COUNTIES IN CA AND YOU START TO GET AN IDEA OF THE STAGGERING
WELFARE STATE MEXICO AND THE DEMOCRAT PARTY HAVE ERECTED SANS ANY LEGALS VOTES.
ADD TO THIS THE FREE ENTERPRISE HOSPITAL AND CLINIC COST FOR LA RAZA’S “FREE”
MEDICAL WHICH IS ESTIMATED TO BE ABOUT $1.5 BILLION PER YEAR.
Liberals claim they more than make that up with
taxes paid, but that’s simply not true. It’s not even close. FAIR estimates
illegal aliens in California contribute only $1.21 billion in tax revenue,
which means they cost California $20.6 billion, or at least $1,800 per
household.
Nonetheless, open border advocates, such as Facebook Chairman Mark Zuckerberg, claim illegal aliens are a net benefit to California with little evidence to support such an assertion. As the Center for Immigration Studies has documented, the vast majority of illegals are poor, uneducated, and with few skills. How does accepting millions of illegal aliens and then granting them access to dozens of welfare programs benefit California’s economy? If illegal aliens were contributing to the economy in any meaningful way, California, with its 2.6 million illegal aliens, would be booming.
Furthermore, the complexion of illegal aliens has changed with far more on welfare and committing crimes than those who entered the country in the 1980s. Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has testified before a Congressional committee that in 2004, 95% of all outstanding warrants for murder in Los Angeles were for illegal aliens; in 2000, 23% of all Los Angeles County jail inmates were illegal aliens and that in 1995, 60% of Los Angeles’s largest street gang, the 18th Street gang, were illegal aliens. Granted, those statistics are old, but if you talk to any California law enforcement officer, they will tell you it’s much worse today. The problem is that the Brown administration will not release any statewide data on illegal alien crimes. That would be insensitive. And now that California has declared itself a “sanctuary state,” there is little doubt this sends a message south of the border that will further escalate illegal immigration into the state.
Nonetheless, open border advocates, such as Facebook Chairman Mark Zuckerberg, claim illegal aliens are a net benefit to California with little evidence to support such an assertion. As the Center for Immigration Studies has documented, the vast majority of illegals are poor, uneducated, and with few skills. How does accepting millions of illegal aliens and then granting them access to dozens of welfare programs benefit California’s economy? If illegal aliens were contributing to the economy in any meaningful way, California, with its 2.6 million illegal aliens, would be booming.
Furthermore, the complexion of illegal aliens has changed with far more on welfare and committing crimes than those who entered the country in the 1980s. Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has testified before a Congressional committee that in 2004, 95% of all outstanding warrants for murder in Los Angeles were for illegal aliens; in 2000, 23% of all Los Angeles County jail inmates were illegal aliens and that in 1995, 60% of Los Angeles’s largest street gang, the 18th Street gang, were illegal aliens. Granted, those statistics are old, but if you talk to any California law enforcement officer, they will tell you it’s much worse today. The problem is that the Brown administration will not release any statewide data on illegal alien crimes. That would be insensitive. And now that California has declared itself a “sanctuary state,” there is little doubt this sends a message south of the border that will further escalate illegal immigration into the state.
"If the
racist "Sensenbrenner Legislation" passes the US Senate, there is no
doubt that a massive civil disobedience movement will emerge. Eventually labor
union power can merge with the immigrant civil rights and "Immigrant Sanctuary" movements
to enable us to either form a new political party or to do heavy duty reforming
of the existing Democratic Party. The next and final steps would follow and
that is to elect our own governors of all the states within Aztlan."
Indeed, California goes out of its way to attract illegal aliens. The state has even created government programs that cater exclusively to illegal aliens. For example, the State Department of Motor Vehicles has offices that only process driver licenses for illegal aliens. With over a million illegal aliens now driving in California, the state felt compelled to help them avoid the long lines the rest of us must endure at the DMV. And just recently, the state-funded University of California system announced it will spend $27 million on financial aid for illegal aliens. They’ve even taken out radio spots on stations all along the border, just to make sure other potential illegal border crossers hear about this program. I can’t afford college education for all my four sons, but my taxes will pay for illegals to get a college education.
Indeed, California goes out of its way to attract illegal aliens. The state has even created government programs that cater exclusively to illegal aliens. For example, the State Department of Motor Vehicles has offices that only process driver licenses for illegal aliens. With over a million illegal aliens now driving in California, the state felt compelled to help them avoid the long lines the rest of us must endure at the DMV. And just recently, the state-funded University of California system announced it will spend $27 million on financial aid for illegal aliens. They’ve even taken out radio spots on stations all along the border, just to make sure other potential illegal border crossers hear about this program. I can’t afford college education for all my four sons, but my taxes will pay for illegals to get a college education.
https://spectator.org/adios-california/?utm_source=American+Spectator+Emails&utm_campaign=6e1b467cf4
If
Immigration Creates Wealth, Why Is California America's Poverty Capital?
California
used to be home to America's largest and most affluent middle
class. Today, it is America's poverty
capital. What went wrong? In a word:
immigration. According to the U.S. Census Bureau'...:
The Golden State is peddling fool's gold lately.
California used to be home to America's largest and most
affluent middle class. Today, it is America's poverty
capital. What went wrong? In a word: immigration.
According
to the U.S. Census Bureau's Official
Poverty Measure, California's poverty rate hovers around 15
percent. But this figure is misleading: the Census Bureau measures
poverty relative to a uniform national standard, which doesn't account for
differences in living costs between states – the cost of taxes, housing, and
health care are higher in California than in Oklahoma, for
example. Accounting for these differences reveals that California's
real poverty rate is 20.6 percent – the highest in America, and
nearly twice the national average of 12.7 percent.
Likewise, income
inequality in California is the second-highest in America, behind
only New York. In fact, if California were an independent country,
it would be the 17th most unequal country on Earth, nestled comfortably between
Honduras and Guatemala. Mexico is slightly more
egalitarian. California is far more unequal than the "social
democracies" it emulates: Canada is the 111th most unequal nation,
while Norway is far down the list at number 153 (out of 176
countries). In terms of income inequality, California has more in
common with banana republics than other "social democracies."
More
Government, More Poverty
High
taxes, excessive regulations, and a lavish welfare state – these are the standard
explanations for California's poverty epidemic. They have some
merit. For example, California has both the highest personal income
tax rate and the highest sales tax in America, according to Politifact.
Not
only are California's taxes high, but successive "progressive"
governments have swamped the state in a sea of red tape. Onerous
regulations cripple small businesses and retard economic
growth. Kerry Jackson, a fellow with the Pacific Research Institute,
gives a few specific examples of how excessive government regulation hurts
California's poor. He writes in a recent op-ed for the Los
Angeles Times:
Extensive
environmental regulations aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions make
energy more expensive, also hurting the poor. By some estimates,
California energy costs are as much as 50% higher than the national
average. Jonathan A. Lesser of Continental Economics ... found that
"in 2012, nearly 1 million California households faced ... energy
expenditures exceeding 10% of household income."
Some
government regulation is necessary and desirable, but most of California's is
not. There is virtue in governing with a "light touch."
Finally,
California's welfare state is, perhaps paradoxically, a source of poverty in
the state. The Orange
Country Register reports that California's social safety net is
comparable in scale to those found in Europe:
In California a mother with two children under the age of 5 who
participates in these major welfare programs – Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), housing
assistance, home energy assistance, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for
Women, Infants and Children – would receive a benefits package worth $30,828
per year.
... [Similar] benefits in Europe ranged from $38,588 per year in
Denmark to just $1,112 in Romania. The California benefits package
is higher than in well-known welfare states as France ($17,324), Germany
($23,257) and even Sweden ($22,111).
Although
welfare states ideally help the poor, reality is
messy. There are three main problems with the welfare
state. First, it incentivizes poverty by rewardingthe
poor with government handouts that are often far more valuable than a
job. This can be ameliorated to some degree by imposing work
requirements on welfare recipients, but in practice, such requirements are
rarely imposed. Second, welfare states are expensive. This means higher taxes and therefore slower economic
growth and fewer job opportunities for everyone – including the poor.
Finally,
welfare states are magnets for the poor. Whether through domestic
migration or foreign immigration, poor people flock to places with generous
welfare states. This is logical from the immigrant's perspective,
but it makes little sense from the taxpayer's. This fact is why
socialism and open borders arefundamentally
incompatible.
Why
Big Government?
Since
1960, California's population
exploded from 15.9 to 39 million people. The growth
was almost entirely due to immigration – many people came from other states,
but the majority came from abroad. The Public Policy
Institute of California estimates that 10 million immigrants
currently reside in California. This works out to 26 percent of the
state's population.
This figure includes
2.4 million illegal aliens, although a recent study from Yale University suggests that the
true number of aliens is at least double that. Modifying the initial
figure implies that nearly one in three Californians is an immigrant. This
is not to disparage California's immigrant population, but it is madness to
deny that such a large influx of people has changed California's society and
economy.
Importantly,
immigrants vote Democrat by a ratio higher than 2:1, according to a report
from the Center
for Immigration Studies. In California, immigration has
increased the pool of likely Democrat voters by nearly 5 million people,
compared to just 2.4 million additional likely Republican
voters. Not only does this almost guarantee Democratic victories,
but it also shifts California's political midpoint to the left. This
means that to remain competitive in elections, the Republicans must abandon
or soften many conservative positions so as to cater to the center.
California became a Democratic stronghold not because Californians
became socialists, but because millions of socialists moved
there. Immigration turned California blue, and immigration is
ultimately to blame for California's high poverty level.
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