California, the liberal laboratory, is falling apart.  In the latest news we learn that the money California is spending to fight homelessness is spent without accountability.  “Despite the roughly billions of dollars spent on more than 30 homeless and housing programs during the 2018-2023 fiscal years, California doesn’t have reliable data needed to fully understand why the problem didn’t improve in many cities, according to state auditor’s report.”  But to true California observers that is not news.  The problem is the federal government is headed in the same direction.

Consider:

According to a recent study by the nonpartisan Transparency Foundation, a family earning $130,000 per year faces an estimated “Cost of California” penalty of $26,478 compared to if they paid the national average for different cost-of-living categories.

Yep – you heard it here – a $26K premium just to live in California.  I can verify based on my move out of California 14 months ago.  Now consider:

“As the mandated market share of EVs grows, the number of ICE vehicle sales must shrink. A decreasing number of ICE vehicle sales would have to prop up an increasing number of EV sales. The price hike per ICE vehicle would have to increase to offset losses on the ever-larger volume EVs sold,” Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the DCNF. “Used cars compete with new cars for customers. If new car prices rise, so will used car prices. Even with generous federal, state, and manufacturer incentives, EVs cost thousands of dollars more than comparable ICE vehicles, and millions of middle-income households are already priced out of the market for new vehicles.”

And so we see the federal government getting into the California game – increasing the cost of living so that normal people cannot afford to live.  Apparently, people at the federal level are not getting the message being sent by the rapidly depopulating California.

But the game gets more convoluted.  There are new regs out of EPA concerning emissions of cancer causing materials.  On its face, that seem like a good thing.  But let’s think about it a bit:

More than 200 chemical plants nationwide will be required to reduce toxic emissions that are likely to cause cancer under a new rule issued Tuesday by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The rule advances President Biden’s commitment to environmental justice by delivering critical health protections for communities burdened by industrial pollution from ethylene oxide, chloroprene and other dangerous chemicals, officials said.

Areas that will benefit from the new rule include majority-Black neighborhoods outside New Orleans that EPA Administrator Michael Regan visited as part of his 2021 Journey to Justice tour.

OK, let’s break this down a bit.  First of all, there is no science here.  This is not based on cancer probabilities, permissible emission limits, or other ways that industrial hygienists, public health officials and scientists generally understand toxic emissions.  This is neighborhood based – pure social engineering.  This does not affect similar emissions in other places – so this is purely picking winners and losers.  That is not the EPA’s job.   But here is the really important question – what will this do to the value of the land around these plants?

Manufacturing facilities like this usually work very hard to locate in places away from people – they do not wish to be a nuisance to anybody.  As a side effect the land near them becomes very cheap, precisely because of the nuisance the plants create.  And then people of lesser means move in because the land is inexpensive.  And now they are complaining about the nuisance that is precisely the reason they located there to begin with.  That’s human nature.  What nobody is thinking about, the local residents or the EPA, is that in reducing the nuisance the value of the surrounding land will increase and soon the people that are complaining will be priced out of the neighborhood.  It’s a bit self-defeating.

Once again, the federal government imitates California making the life costlier.  All this liberal policy is expensive – very, very expensive.  For the party that purports to be all about the little guy, that seems to be just a bit disingenuous.