Walters: California experiments with social democracy

California is no longer a Free State.  Parents are told by government what medicines their children MUST take.  Government decides on abortions and sex change operations.  Government school teach ala Germany in 1939 that there is a superior race—and an inferior race.  Taxes make sure the middle class either leaves the State to economically survive, or stay and become part of the poverty class.

“The Public Policy Institute of California takes the issue a bit further by calculating how many Californians are living in near-poverty, using methodology similar to that of the Census Bureau.

Altogether, more than a third of the state’s nearly 40 million residents experience severe economic distress. They are, for the most part, workers in low-pay jobs and their families, and their plight has been exacerbated by the nearly two-year-long COVID-19 pandemic, which has hit them the hardest both medically and economically.

Backed by unions, Gov. Gavin Newsom and his fellow Democrats have vowed to reduce the state’s high levels of poverty and income disparity and this year generated a bushel basket of legislation they contend will narrow the gaps.

Instead, unions steal from workers paychecks and force productive people to either pay bribes to work, be unemployed or move to a Free State.

California experiments with social democracy

by Dan Walters, CalMatters,   10/4/21    

A flurry of legislation signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom is an experiment in European-style social democracy. Will it work?

California, as everyone should know by now, has the nation’s highest rate of poverty as determined by the Census Bureau when the cost-of-living is included in the calculation.

While family incomes in California are not particularly low vis-à-vis those in other states, our extremely high living costs, especially for housing, mean those incomes do not stretch as far as they would elsewhere.

The Public Policy Institute of California takes the issue a bit further by calculating how many Californians are living in near-poverty, using methodology similar to that of the Census Bureau.

Altogether, more than a third of the state’s nearly 40 million residents experience severe economic distress. They are, for the most part, workers in low-pay jobs and their families, and their plight has been exacerbated by the nearly two-year-long COVID-19 pandemic, which has hit them the hardest both medically and economically.

Backed by unions, Gov. Gavin Newsom and his fellow Democrats have vowed to reduce the state’s high levels of poverty and income disparity and this year generated a bushel basket of legislation they contend will narrow the gaps.

California is, in effect, testing long-held beliefs of those on the political left that America should move closer to the European model of “social democracy” by expanding supportive public services and empowering workers in their dealings with employers.

The former include increasing eligibility for Medi-Cal, the state’s health care system for the poor which already covers more than a third of California’s residents, expanding early childhood education to both improve learning outcomes and free more parents to work, and increasing spending on housing for low- and moderate-income families.

The latter is a variety of bills that impose new workplace and compensation standards on industries that employ large numbers of low-paid workers, most notably garment production, agriculture and the ever-increasing distribution centers operated by Amazon and other big corporations.

“We cannot allow corporations to put profit over people,” Newsom said as he signed legislation to ease production quotas in Amazon’s massive “fulfillment centers.”

“The hardworking warehouse employees who have helped sustain us during these unprecedented times should not have to risk injury or face punishment as a result of exploitative quotas that violate basic health and safety,” Newsom added.

“California is holding corporations accountable and recognizing the dignity and humanity of our workers, who have helped build the fifth-largest economy in the world,” Newsom said later as he signed a bill banning piecework pay in the Los Angeles-centered garment industry.