The Troubles Beneath the Surface of California’s Comeback

There’s a budget surplus, but also homelessness, lousy schools, expensive housing and even typhus

By Allysia Finley. Excerpts:

"So are we seeing the triumph of progressive policies in California? Have high levels of taxation and government spending at long last bought prosperity? Hardly. Californians are paying, one way or another, for their state’s liberal decadences.

Though the state is home to 12% of the U.S. population, nearly half of the nation’s “unsheltered” homeless now live in California. Last year the number of homeless rose 16% in Los Angeles and 17% in San Francisco. In Los Angeles the explosion of homelessness has given rise to a host of related problems: public defecation, rodent infestations and medieval diseases like typhus. Liberals blame a shortage of “affordable housing,” which notably is a function of local zoning and state environmental policies that for decades have limited development. As usual, the left believes the solution is more government spending."

"there’s no evidence more spending will produce better outcomes."

"Many homeless are on the streets because they suffer from mental-health problems. In 2004 California voters approved a 1% surtax on millionaires to fund mental-health treatment. Yet in 2016 the state’s Little Hoover Commission, an independent government oversight agency, reported that officials couldn’t account for how the government spent the tax’s $2 billion in annual revenues."

"Incarceration, like other social problems, is typically rooted in failing schools. Only 31% of fourth-graders in California are proficient in math, compared with 40% nationwide. Only 23% of Hispanic and 21% of low-income California fourth-graders score proficient in reading, about half as many as in Florida. California spends $3,600 more per pupil than Florida.

This year California will spend $102 billion on K-12 education, about 50% more than before voters raised taxes on the rich in 2012. Test scores haven’t improved, and much of the money has gone toward pensions for retired public employees."
"Californians pay twice as much for electricity than do residents of Washington and Oregon. As a regulated utility, PG&E is required to pay for system maintenance. But the utility apparently shortchanged spending on safety for years so it could spend more on green-energy mandates, with Sacramento’s tacit approval."