Ending Poverty Requires Serious Policy, Not Political Platitudes

Published

2 years ago

August 4, 2023

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At times, the California Legislature is reminiscent of a high-school student council, except that instead of working with few-hundred-dollar activities budget lawmakers are spending more than $300 billion in revenues. I’m not the first commentatorto notice that politicians often promise things they can’t possibly provideand are no more realistic than a student body president offering free pizza on Fridays.

What can you do? Democracy is, as Winston Churchillsaid, “the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Fast forward to the latest capitol silliness. A group of Democratic lawmakers is starting the End Poverty In California caucus, which is unlikely to be as EPIC as its name suggests. Ending poverty is a large promiseand the Legislature is much better at passing laws that exacerbate poverty (minimum wage, anti-competitive union work rules, onerous licensing requirements) rather than reduce it.

For starters, legislative caucuses are notoriously ineffective. They’re the equivalent of those high-school clubs where like-minded people get together to engage in virtue signaling and whatnot. The state legislature has 16 caucuses centering on identity (gender, ethnicity), issues (aviation, environment), or locale (rural communities, the Bay Area).

The latest newsworthy caucus formation is theProblem Solvers Caucus, which promises to put good policy over partisanship, but which has accomplished nothing remarkable. We can only hope the “ending poverty” effort is equally ineffective given the people whose ideas it is based upon. Politicoreportsthe name is a “nod to Upton Sinclair’s 1934 gubernatorial campaign” and is the “brainchild” of former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs.

Sinclair was a socialist and Tubbs is best known for promoting “universal basic income.” Sinclair’s EPIC campaign plan promised to “develop a state-managed cooperative economy that would initially provide livelihoods for the unemployed while pointing the way to the eventual replacement of the private economy based on profit,” the University of Washington explains.

The new EPIC chairman is Assembly Majority LeaderIsaac Bryan (DLos Angeles) so this comes from one of the Legislature’s most powerful members. Tubbs has created a nonprofit groupof the same name. He served as the mayor of one of the state’s mostimpoverished citiesa San Joaquin Valley industrial city best known for its municipal bankruptcy (caused in part by excessive benefits for city employees) and atrocious crime rates.

Tubbs apparently was so busy basking in hisnational attention as a young progressive rising star that he didn’t tend to matters at home. He lost re-election to a Republican political neophyte in a city with a two-to-one Democratic voter registration advantage. After his loss, he became an economic adviser to Gov. Gavin Newsom. Tubbs’ major initiative was that privately funded project to provide $500 monthly in free money to select residents.

If you’re still not understanding where this caucus is headed, then I’ll quote from Tubbs’ testimony at an Assembly subcommittee on poverty and inclusion, as captured in avideothat his nonprofit released. Tubbs said the state has a “unique opportunity” to pass “common-sense, well-researched policies from baby bonds to guaranteed income to housing as a right to more affordable housing to truly make the state a golden one for all.”

Baby bondswould have the government provide a set amount of money to every newborn child. Guaranteed income means the government would provide a stipend to everyone. Turning housing into a “right” means that landlords would lose the ability to evict tenants and also includes rent controlseven though “well-researched” studies have found such policies deplete the housing stock. More “affordable housing” means more subsidized housing.

Tubb’s group is correct that poverty rates in California are atrocious. “California has the highest rate of poverty at 13.2% of any state in the U.S.,” itnotes. “28.7 percent of all California residents were poor or near poor in fall 2021.” EPIC doesn’t address that California’s poverty rate is the worst in the nationespecially when cost-of-living factors are includeddespitethis being the nation’s most progressive state. It offers the most generous welfare programs.

One would think that politicians who are serious about ending poverty would at least address that paradox. The video features union organizers who point to the need for an even more powerful union presence in our state, yet unions were on the vanguard of some of the state’s most poverty-inducing policiessuch as Assembly Bill 5, which tried to ban most forms of independent contracting and destroyed moderate-income jobs throughout the freelance economy.

With their progressive policies, lawmakers are destroying the incentive for developers to build more housing. They’re always addingregulations and taxesthat shutter businesses and discourage people from investing in new ones. Instead of recognizing that California’s poverty problem largely is the result of government meddling, EPIC will propose more-aggressive interventions. At some point, lawmakers need to stop making unattainable high-school-level promises and begin wrestling with complex realities.

This column was first published in The Orange County Register.

Politics

Starmer ran the gauntlet with Trump but just about emerged intact

Published

1 hour ago

July 28, 2025

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Starmer ran the gauntlet with Trump but just about emerged intact

When TV cameras are let in to film world leaders meeting in person, the resulting footage is usually incredibly boring for journalists and incredibly safe for politicians.

Not with Donald Trump.

Sir Keir Starmer ran the gauntlet on Monday.

Trump latest: President treats PM to a ride on Air Force One

Put through a total of almost 90 minutes of televised questioning alongside the American leader, it was his diciest encounter with the president yet.

But he still just about emerged intact.

For a start, he can claim substantive policy wins after Trump announced extra pressure on Vladimir Putin to negotiate a ceasefire and dialled up the concern over the devastating scenes coming from Gaza.

There were awkward moments aplenty though.

Top of the list is Mr Trump’s trashing of the prime minister’s Labour colleague, London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan.

But more important than that, Monday’s meeting was the clearest representation of the political gulf that separates the two leaders.

“He’s slightly more liberal than me,” Mr Trump said of Sir Keir when he arrived in Scotland.

What an understatement.

On green energy, immigration, taxation and online regulation, the differences were clear to see.

Sir Keir just about managed to paper over the cracks by chuckling at times, choosing his interventions carefully and always attempting to sound eminently reasonable.

At times, it had the energy of a man being forced to grin and bear inappropriate comments from his in-laws at an important family dinner.

But hey, it stopped a full Trump implosion – so I suppose that’s a win.

My main takeaway from this Scotland visit though is not so much the political gulf present between the two men, but the gulf in power.

Sir Keir flew the length of the country he leads to be the guest at the visiting president’s resort.

He was then forced to sit through more than an hour of uncontrolled, freewheeling questioning from a man most of his party and voters despise, during which he was offered unsolicited advice on how to beat Nigel Farage and criticised (albeit indirectly) on key planks of his government’s policy platform.

In return he got warm words about him (and his wife) and relatively incremental announcements on two foreign policy priorities.

So why does he do it?

Because, to borrow a quote from a popular American political TV series: “Air Force One is a big plane and it makes a hell of a noise when it lands on your head.”

World

Israeli human rights organisations accuse country of genocide

Published

1 hour ago

July 28, 2025

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Israeli human rights organisations accuse country of genocide

Two Israeli human rights organisations have said the country is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

In reports published on Monday, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said Israel was carrying out “coordinated, deliberate action to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip”.

The two groups are the first major voices within Israeli society to make such accusations against the state during nearly 22 months of war against Hamas.

Israel has vehemently denied claims of genocide. David Mencer, a spokesperson for the government, called the allegation by the rights groups “baseless”.

He said: “There is no intent, (which is) key for the charge of genocide… it simply doesn’t make sense for a country to send in 1.9 million tonnes of aid, most of that being food, if there is an intent of genocide.”

B’Tselem director Yuli Novak called for urgent action, saying: “What we see is a clear, intentional attack on civilians in order to destroy a group.”

The organisation’s report “is one we never imagined we would have to write,” Ms Novak said. “The people of Gaza have been displaced, bombed, and starved, left completely stripped of their humanity and rights.”

PHR said Israel’s military campaign shows evidence of a “deliberate and systemic dismantling of Gaza’s health and life-sustaining systems”.

Both organisations said Israel’s Western allies were enabling the genocidal campaign, and shared responsibility for suffering in Gaza.

“It couldn’t happen without the support of the Western world,” Ms Novak said. “Any leader that is not doing whatever they can to stop it is part of this horror.”

Hamas said the reports by the two groups were a “clear and unambiguous testimony from within Israeli society itself regarding the grave crimes perpetrated by the occupation regime against our people”.

Dire humanitarian conditions

Since Israel launched its offensive in Gaza following the deadly Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, nearly 60,000 people – mostly civilians – have been killed, according to Gaza health officials.

Much of the infrastructure has been destroyed, and nearly the whole population of more than two million has been displaced.

An increasing number of people in Gaza are also dying from starvation and malnutrition, according to Gaza health authorities.

On Monday, the Gaza health ministry reported that at least 14 people had died from starvation and malnutrition in the past 24 hours, raising the total number of hunger-related deaths during the war to 147.

Among the victims were 88 children, with most of the deaths occurring in recent weeks.

UN agencies say the territory is running out of food for its people and accuse Israel of not allowing enough aid deliveries to the enclave. Israel denies those claims.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said “there is no starvation in Gaza” and vowed to fight on against Hamas.

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that many in Gaza are facing starvation and implied that Israel could take further steps to improve humanitarian access.

Israel has repeatedly said its actions in Gaza are in self-defence, placing full responsibility for civilian casualties on Hamas. It cites the militant group’s refusal to release hostages, surrender, or stop operating within civilian areas – allegations that Hamas denies.

UK

Two killed in stabbing at business premises in London

Published

1 hour ago

July 28, 2025

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Two killed in stabbing at business premises in London

Two men have died after a stabbing in central London.

Police were called to a business premises in Long Lane, Southwark, at 1pm on Monday, where they found four people had been stabbed.

A 58-year-old man died at the scene while three others were taken to hospital, the Metropolitan Police said. These included a 27-year-old man who has since died.

A third man, who is in his thirties, remains in hospital with injuries described as non-life-threatening.

Another man in his thirties, who has been detained in connection with the incident, remains in a life-threatening condition in hospital.

Detective Chief Superintendent Emma Bond said: “Our investigation is in the early stages and we are working hard to understand the full circumstances of this shocking incident.

“At this point, we do not believe it to be terrorism-related and there is no further risk to the public.”