Something is broken in California. As the federal shutdown threatens to cut off food assistance for 5.5 million residents, we’re once again reminded that our state, the world’s fourth-largest economy (or 5th), is a symbol of wealth and a portrait of dysfunction. How can a place with so much innovation, agriculture, and opportunity have millions dependent on EBT cards to survive?
Because California has built a system that manages poverty instead of solving it.
We make it harder to build, hire, and stay in business. Every year, our state politicians add new layers of regulation that drive up costs and push employers out. Entire industries, from manufacturing to energy and agriculture, are suffocated by new mandates and fees, while state agencies boast about hiring more regulators instead of helping businesses grow. Then we act shocked when jobs disappear, small businesses close, and people end up in food lines.
We spend billions on homelessness programs that produce 220-square-foot units costing $837,000 apiece, with little accountability and few results. We raise taxes in the name of compassion but have less to show for it each year. Meanwhile, the streets of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento tell a story of tents, addiction, and despair.
Now add this: 5.5 million Californians on food assistance and nearly nine million who live with food insecurity. That’s not a safety net; that’s a crisis of leadership.
California’s political priorities are upside down. Instead of fixing the root causes of high housing costs, lack of skilled job training, and punitive tax policies, the state keeps layering on short-term fixes and pointing fingers elsewhere.
California doesn’t need more taxes. It needs a strategy to make work pay, to make housing affordable, and to make business possible again.
The federal government will reopen, as it always does. But the real question is when California will reopen its promise? The one that says, “If you work hard, you can get ahead.” Until we stop managing poverty and start creating opportunity, this cycle will never end.
California’s wealth means nothing if its people can’t eat, work, or hope. The true measure of progress isn’t how many programs we fund, but how many people no longer need them.
