From New York State comes the story of a Marine Corps family that had their entire savings wiped out by the New York State tax agency. Follow the link if you want all the details but it basically boils down to bureaucrats doing bureaucratic things and ignorant of federal law – I think because bureaucracy über alles. Saturday I contrasted the “Nothing to see here” approach the federal EPA, under Biden, took to the East Palestine, OH chemically heavy train derailment, compared to the the seizure of private property after the LA fires for environmental clean-up. Nothing stands in the way of a California bureaucrat, not even private property.
After giving residents a day’s notice that they would have to leave, bulldozers and trash trucks cleared away the tents at more than 40 encampments in one week.
Compare that with the typical process in California, as detailed in a 2022 state Department of Transportation directive.
Caltrans may take rapid action to clear an encampment only if it “poses an imminent threat to life, health, safety or infrastructure,” such as being on an “unstable structure at risk of collapse” or at “immediate risk of getting hit by vehicles.”
Otherwise, the process begins with the California Highway Patrol assisting the department in a site assessment, followed by outreach to service providers and a “Hazmat Coordinator” evaluation.
Then a “Notice to Vacate” is posted at “each major point of ingress/egress in a conspicuous manner,” again with CHP’s assistance in case of “interference,” a euphemism for screaming pro-encampment protesters who call hotel rooms for the homeless “carceral.”
After a minimum of 48 hours, CHP, Caltrans and contractors may arrive for removal operations. Personal property must be collected, photographed, inventoried, bagged, tagged and stored for not fewer than 60 days.
To do this, workers must separate the personal property from everything they’re not required to collect and store: toxic sharps, knives, chemicals, soiled bedding, combustibles, propane tanks, unidentified liquids, controlled substances and weapons.
They’re also not required to collect and store “moldy, mildewed items,” “items that may be infested by rodents and insects” or anything “co-mingled or littered with needles, human waste or other health risks.”
How could things have gotten this bad? Well, in this case it is because the State of California settled a civil liberties lawsuit by acknowledging a “right” to camp on public lands. Why would they do that? The current situation was an inevitable outcome. Elsewhere in that NYP story:
California’s policy is to throw billions of dollars of taxpayer money at the problem.
After the 2015 Los Angeles homelessness count showed a 12% increase in the county’s homeless population in just two years, LA voters were persuaded to approve a $1.2 billion city bond for homeless housing and a 0.25% temporary county sales-tax increase for related services.
Voters agreed last year to double that tax hike and make it permanent.
Two years earlier they approved a city tax of 4% to 5.5% of the sale price of high-value real estate to fund more homelessness programs.
Bureaucrats gotta bureaucrat, and that takes money – money to hire more bureaucrats that gotta bureaucrat until the whirlpool grows large enough that it simply sucks all the money into it.
It is simple human nature – if you invest yourself in an institution, any institution, you want to see that institution grow if for no other reason than to justify your allegiance. And if your institution enjoys the power of government you can demand your grow, without performance. At least institutions pf private enterprise have to earn their growth. Government is as self-serving as any one else or any other institution. In the case of California homelessness, the more homelessness, the more bureaucracy, the bigger the bureaucracy, the better. (One suspects there is a healthy dose of corruption thrown in there somewhere – there certainly are a lot of NGOs enjoying bureaucratic largesse.)
It seems like I always return to this point – our problems stem from our character and there is no amount of rules, regulations or institutions that cannot be corrupted by that character.
We are constantly reminded that many of the Founders were not Christians. But all of them understood Christianity, studied it, and understood that it is a means to improving the character of people. Further they knew that people of good character were necessary for this republic to survive. Therefore, they carved out space for religion to flourish, not to be contained.
That forces work constantly to contain religion is unsurprising to me. That religion has gone along with it quietly is the real problem.
