The California cap and trade program more than a decade ago was sold as a way to save the planet from climate change. Climate was then and today still is sold as an existential crisis, much like the COVID crisis. In reality, cap and trade was a massive tax increase advanced by threats of doom and bribery of voters. It also was a massive power shift from local to state government.
Since 2014 California has forced firms it labels “gross polluters” to give up $28 billion to the state’s cap and trade agenda. That $28 billion tax increases the price of goods produced in California, and is therefore inflationary. A median-priced home in Los Angeles County costs $1 million, so the folks there know a thing about inflation.
Gov. Gavin Newsom wants “his constituents” to know he is thinking of them, and so he has order a “credit ” averaging $137 to appear on people’s utility bills.
Note this is not cash taken from the cap and trade tax collection scam itself. California consumers will not see a dime, It is a credit applied to a utility bill from Southern California Edison, PG&E and local utilities. Does anyone believe the rebate was not anticipated and was not built into those $500 and $1,000 monthly electric bills? The credit is not real. It is pure political fiction.
Newsom brags the trade fund spent $28 billion on more than 500,000 climate projects statewide. He also says the fund sustained 30,000 jobs and removed untold millions of tons of pollution.
One must pause the enthusiastic hand clapping and cheers to contemplate how the governor of California and future candidate for president spent the money.
He has funded the building of “affordable housing” in industrial and commercial areas. Essentially, California has usurped the power of local cities and counties to design their own general plan and protect residential neighborhoods from the encroachment of industrial, commercial and high-traffic office space. Newsom has the state attorney general suing incorporated cities that object to the destruction of their residential character as Democrats force the Newsom vision upon the serfs who he thinks should live upstairs over the grocery, and walk downstairs to work. And because the Democrats have appointed nearly all the judges in the state, he always wins those lawsuits.
That housing is designed by state edict, not market forces, and as such it is reserved for the homeless and low income. Wait until the survivors of the Pacific Palisades fire meet their new SNAP card neighbors.
Another gem in Newsom’s presidential resume is the high speed rail project. He ignores the fact high speed rail is a multi-billion-dollar failure after two decades of planning, politics, bond issues and failure.
The Hoover Institute summed up the progress on high speed rail in a 2023 article. “In 2008, California voters approved $9.95 billion of state bond funding as seed money to build an 800-mile high-speed rail (HSR) network connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco, and the Central Valley to coastal cities, at speeds of up to 220 miles per hour, with an expected completion date of 2020.”
That did not happen. The high speed rail does not exist but it has cost more than the World War II lend-lease program. It is a failure, but the futurist Newsom cannot stop talking about it.
He also uses cap and trade to add zero-emission “transportation options in underserved communities.” In the twisted thinking of the left coast liberals, that transportation option most likely are painted lines on exiting streets labeled “Bicycles Only.” To make room for the folks to bicycle, vehicles are restricted to two lanes, one in each direction. That somehow represents the removal of tons of pollutants from the air.
So cap and trade is a money-shifting scheme to finance the state’s takeover of local government.
For the folks in the other 49, before Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom, local government in the Golden State did just about everything the public needed. Education was run by local school boards and paid for with local taxes and local bond issues. Roads, parks, utilities, city design, law enforcement, fire, even welfare was none of the state’s business and certainly not that of the federal government.
All that municipal government once did is up to the state now, and California has the worst educational system, the worst roads, the largest populations of illegals and of homeless, the highest welfare costs, and just one political choice: to vote Democrat. California is right for you if your dream is to pay $1 million for a 1928-constructed bungalow offering two bedrooms, one bathroom and a view of the tents on the sidewalk.
But then there is compensation. Just think of that $137 average “credit” on your utility bill.