Gavin Newsom loves to brag about how rich California is. Here’s a typical post in which he says that “California is the fourth largest economy in the world” and is getting richer every day (“#1 in new business startups”).
Here’s a recent post from Gavin Newsom in which he says that “40 million people [will] lose access to food.” (Note that there are actually more than 40 million people on SNAP, which in no way should be considered “welfare”, but let’s accept 40 million as an approximation.) He doesn’t say that “Except for the 5.5 million Californians on SNAP/EBT (“CalFresh”), who will be fully funded with state tax dollars because California is so rich, SNAP/EBT beneficiaries nationwide will lose access to food.”
So…
- the state is rich
- the political party that runs the state says that inequality is bad
- the political party that runs the state says that taxpayer-funded food is a human right
- there is no political opposition to the ruling party
- the state won’t provide food for its residents unless it can feed at the federal trough
How is it possible for all of the above to be true?
Utah pays to keep the National Parks open during government shutdowns. As far as I know, it is the only state to do so. Everyone else inflicts suffering on the tourists while blaming whichever political party they oppose.
When there is a will, there is a way. What’s true for the National Parks is also true for SNAP.
That is genius! https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/governors-tap-state-funds-keep-national-parks-open-government-shutdown-rcna235569 says West Virginia and Tennessee are also doing this.
I still can’t understand why the National Parks aren’t run at a massive profit. $35 per visitor per day fee. They shouldn’t need any funding from Congress!
(discount to $0 to Black people because Black visitors to the Parks are more valuable. https://www.backpacker.com/news-and-events/national-parks-diversity/ says “The problem? Seventy-eight percent of those visitors were white. That doesn’t bode well for a country that will be mostly nonwhite by 2044.” (remember that white people becoming a minority cannot be considered a result of a “replacement” process))
It seems that about 20% of NYC’s population receives SNAP benefits. From observation, it seems to me that in NYC’s Chinatown about half the supermarket transactions are completed using EBT cards. The people with the EBT cards typically speak no English and are often elderly. Though you can’t fault the Chinese for what they buy, typically fresh fish, meat and vegetables – no Doritos, Pringles, Little Debbie Cakes and Cola, none of which is typically stocked in a Chinese supermarket. I often wonder who the real beneficiaries of SNAP are, besides the bureaucrats who “administer” the program, since presumably if there was no SNAP food prices would fall so there would be an equilibrium between what people could pay and the price of food.
California “feeds at the federal trough”?
California is the largest net loser on Federal taxes in absolute terms, sending $78B more than they received in 2023.
https://usafacts.org/articles/which-states-contribute-the-most-and-least-to-federal-revenue/
There sure are a lot of red states at the trough…
Phil, I saw this post below today and I can’t make sense of it (silly me), but I wonder if it is related to your post here? Can you apply your MIT education and explain it to me in really simple terms so I can understand it?
https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1982875143266546041
They are making fun of the lack of proper grammar shown by EBT recipients