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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.

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Elon Musk steps up attacks on Trump once again – as the president fights back

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Elon Musk steps up attacks on Trump once again - as the president fights back

Elon Musk has stepped up his attacks on Donald Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill – weeks after a spectacular fallout between the world’s richest man and the US president.

Following weeks of relative silence after clashing with Mr Trump over his “big beautiful bill”, the billionaire vowed to unseat politicians who support it.

In a post on X, Musk said those who had campaigned on cutting spending but then backed the bill “should hang their heads in shame”.

He added: “And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.”

Musk also threatened to put their faces on a poster which said “liar” and “voted to increase America’s debt” by $5trn (£3.6trn).

The posts attracted a swift reply from Mr Trump, who claimed the billionaire “may get more subsidy than any human being in history” for his electric car business.

“Without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa,” he wrote on Truth Social.

“No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!”

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Elon’s dad on the Musk-Trump bust-up

Musk spent at least $250m (£182m) supporting Mr Trump in his presidential campaign and then led the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which sacked about 120,000 federal employees.

He has argued the legislation would greatly increase the US national debt and wipe out the savings he claimed he achieved through DOGE.

As the Senate discussed the package, Musk called it “utterly insane and destructive”.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said the bill’s massive spending indicated “we live in a one-party country – the PORKY PIG PARTY!!”

“Time for a new political party that actually cares about the people,” he wrote.

Read more from Sky News:
Stab victim describes horrible reality of knife crime
Royal train to be scrapped with family to rely on helicopters

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Musk previously said some of his social media posts during his dramatic fallout with Mr Trump “went too far”.

He had shared a series of posts on X, including one that described Mr Trump’s tax and spending bill as a “disgusting abomination”.

He also claimed, in a since-deleted post, that the president appeared in files relating to the disgraced paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

But Musk later wrote: “I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far.”

In response, the president told the New York Post: “I thought it was very nice that he did that.”

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What’s in Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’?

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What's in Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill'?

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Martha Kelner and Mark Stone break down what’s in Donald Trump’s huge tax and spending bill. He’s trying to sign it into law by the end of the week.

They also discuss the State Department’s decision to revoke US visas for British band Bob Vylan after their Glastonbury performance.

If you’ve got a question you’d like the Trump100 team to answer, you can email it to trump100@sky.uk.

You can also watch all episodes on our YouTube channel.

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Major German bank to offer crypto trading by 2026 amid bank ‘FOMO’

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Major German bank to offer crypto trading by 2026 amid bank ‘FOMO’

Major German bank to offer crypto trading by 2026 amid bank ‘FOMO’

Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe execs once ruled out adopting crypto over concerns of volatility and risk, and the banking giant also blocked customer crypto transactions back in 2015.

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