One obvious problem that arises when health care is declared a right is the instantaneous increase in demand for services that are probably unsatisfactory. The same would happen if housing were entitlement, a step California is considering.
“Establishing the right to health care creates the potential for unlimited health care demand.” PRI President and CEO Sally Pipes wrote in 2020:. “But healthcare products and services are inevitably in short supply. There is no way to create an unlimited supply to meet that latent demand.”
It’s a simple concept most people can understand, but it seems outside the Sacramento Rep.’s ability. San Francisco Democratic Rep. Matt Haney said:Basic human rights to housingIf the resolution is approved by lawmakers, Californians will vote in 2024 and will likely win by a wide margin. A 2020 poll found that two-thirds of state voters support an amendment that guarantees the right to housing.
Voters who answered “yes” would naturally assume that the pressure on the California housing market would ease. However, their expectations are unlikely to be met. Just as other hard-left moves in California, such as Universal Basic Income and Reparations, fall short of their goals and are destined to cause a myriad of unforeseen problems, housing for all will adopt it. It will disappoint and self-destruct in every state that does. As people start exercising new “rights,” the demand for already scarce resources will inevitably increase. It will also create headaches for those who have to decide how this new right will apply in practice.
California’s ongoing housing crisis is not getting any better — “the majority of voters still remain,” reports the Los Angeles Times. Disillusioned with housing costsThis has made the state once again a focal point for active policy. While there is a severe shortage of affordable housing, there is no shortage of legislative proposals to solve the problem. It’s a collection of bills that help profit margins and bills that offset profits, leaving the state, at best, with a net profit.
Even if the good far outweighs the bad, as long as the California Environmental Quality Act remains on the books, California will be plagued with deep-seated housing problems. An initiative to ensure reasonable environmental protection, signed in 1970 by then-Governor Ronald Reagan, became a convenient weapon for deterring development.As the Pacific Institute I foundcompanies use this to get rivals involved in business-damaging lawsuits, activists to block construction for political rather than environmental reasons, and unions to leverage more favorable labor agreements. I have used it for
Both Democratic Gov. Gavin Newson and his predecessor Jerry Brown have criticized how CEQA has been used to block and often destroy commercial and infrastructure projects. Newsom said earlier this year.The CEQA process is clearly brokenBrown called for CEQA reform during his second eight-year visit to the Governor’s Office.work of the lord”
Until this stumbling block is removed, not just by gnawing at the edges, but by bold abolition-and-replacement legislative initiatives, California housing will be out of reach for many, making mortgages and rents unaffordable. It will be an economic drain for those who have little left to pay in the end. of this month.
But history repeats itself, and the laws that made California’s third rail still stand. Even Mr. Newsom’s modest CEQA reform bill didn’t directly mention housing, something Congress is unhappy about.
The Congress believes itself to be the nation’s public policy institute and would be happy if rights to housing were enacted across the nation, but that such rights would require others to waive their rights. is of no importance to anyone but an inhabitant. A minority of California legislators. This is because the purpose of passing policy in Sacramento is no longer a matter of public service, but an act of impressing progressive counterparts in the other 49 state legislatures. It has been so for a long time.
Kelly Jackson is a Fellow at the Pacific Institute’s California Reform Center.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.