Ending Poverty Requires Serious Policy, Not Political Platitudes

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 commentator to notice that politicians often promise things they can't possibly provide—and are no more realistic than a student body president offering free pizza on Fridays.

What can you do? Democracy is, as Winston Churchill said, "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 promise—and 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).