Congressman Carbajal’s Bounced Check
by Andy Caldwell
Santa Barbara County supervisors recently congratulated themselves for putting a dent in the homeless population, albeit they were forced to admit that, after spending some $130 million over the last couple of years, the homeless population continued to grow.
While stating that “the end of Covid-era eviction moratoriums, emergency-housing vouchers and rental assistance programs are impacting the ability for people to remain housed in our community,” they did not acknowledge that all this spending had an inflationary effect. Unfortunately, Gavin Newsom’s administration spent even more money – over $24 billion – without bothering to create any measures to track the “results” of the spending.
The inflation caused by these types of government subsidies is one reason people are struggling with poverty, including people who are homeless because of the area’s high rents. For instance, Lompoc has some 30% of the Section 8 housing (subsidized housing) in the county. Section 8 pays so much money to landlords that regular renters who don’t qualify for Section 8 can’t find an affordable rental due to the inflationary impact the program has on this impoverished city.
Another Reason People are Struggling
Regarding the cost of food and consumer goods, the war our supervisors, governor, and president, have been waging against fossil fuels has driven up the price of absolutely everything. The insult to injury? Billions in federal and state monies went to green energy projects and subsidies for electric vehicles and the like, including an electric charger in Cuyama. These projects can’t rely on private sector investors alone because they don’t pencil out.
Moreover, the reason the county had an “extra” $130 million to spend on the homeless was because our federal and state government sent them money that they themselves didn’t have to spend. Add it up. Covid $ (70% of the populace made more money by staying home than going to work, some $30 billion in unemployment checks that CA sent to people who did not qualify to receive the funds (now the CA unemployment fund is broke), and trillions in ARPA money (money that was printed or borrowed).
When politicians give away trillions of dollars not generated by economic activity in the private sector, it serves to create inflationary pressures on the very problems they are now trying to alleviate. The state of CA, for instance, went from a $100 billion “surplus” to a $78 billion dollar deficit in one year.
One year!
$78 billion is more than the state budget of 41 states. And Newsom wants to be our president? In essence, county supervisors realize our house is on fire, but they are hosing it down with borrowed cash, which is the fiscal equivalent of gasoline, making everything worse.
Former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously observed something that is still lost on socialists. Namely, that socialists eventually run out of other people’s money to spend on their programs. Unfortunately, this lesson is lost on our elected officials as monumental losses trickle down to each of these levels of government. That is not to mention $1 trillion in household debt.
Or have you not noticed?
I mentioned our national debt at a county supervisors meeting when Congressman Salud Carbajal was still a county supervisor. He scoffed, as he had no concept of our debt crisis. Now in Congress, he is one of the people spending us into oblivion, going as far as to present photo-op “checks” showing himself as the payor of the funds to various community programs in his district.
How apropos is that?
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Have you ever visited www.usdebtclock.org? The website should be renamed The US Debt Bomb. The numbers are staggering. U.S. national debt is $34 trillion. Social Security liabilities are $27 trillion. Medicare liabilities are $41 trillion. Congress has no plan to address these federal catastrophic shortfalls which exceed $100 trillion.
The vast majority of the homeless are mentally ill, drug addicted or both. They are not homeless because of home affordability but because of an inability to function in society or hold a job. California State University Chanel Islands (CSUCI) is a home to some crazy ideas and and some crazy students. While some would say it it still is, it used to be a state mental hospital where the mentally ill and drug addicted found help and a home. Back in the 1970s I played a jazz gig and puppet show for the inmates and I can tell you that it was not like One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. I saw inmates that were clearly unable to function in society. I saw inmates that were clean, housed and safe. Nurse Ratched was actually kinda awesome. Today they are our homeless living on the streets, dirty, diseased, unfed. No amount of money thrown their way will fix that. The only fix is to get the homeless housed in state mental hospitals. If only we still had state mental hospitals.
I love how he puts his name on the phony check in the photo accompanying the article as if he is funding these projects from his own money rather than the taxpayers. In his world it's all monopoly money that he is spending.