The California Labor Federation has crunched the numbers, and delivered the verdict on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s health care plan: “Unfair, Unaffordable, and Unacceptable”. Frank Russo has a comprehensive summary posted:

Any Californian earning over $36,000 a year (just over 350% of the poverty level) will receive no help paying for insurance. Similarly, an uninsured single mother with two children, earning $61,000 a year, would be left to pay all her household expenses and the full cost of health care for her family….

Recent research has shown that the expected levels of family contributions in Governor Schwarzenegger’s health proposal are high enough to wipe out the life savings of 60% of California families…

Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposed health care plan looks like it will cost the average middle class family between $8,100 and $13,000 a year, forcing many Californians to choose between their financial security or breaking the law.

The Labor Fed’s analysis is damning. Coming on the heels of the California Budget Project study that showed a family of four needs to make at least $70,000 to meet its basic costs, this analysis should prove that Arnold’s plan is not a reform at all – but a bombshell that will shove millions of Californians into bankruptcy.

The individual mandate would require Californians to spend money they don’t have, for coverage that lacks firm deductible caps and has an out-of-pocket limit ($10,000) that would ruin many families well before they reached that limit. It also “would fail to shield 60% of the state” from catastrophic illness costs, even while forcing them to fork over their life savings and a crippling chunk of their paycheck.

There should be little argument now – Arnold’s plan, like any individual mandate plan, is an unaffordable disaster that California must avoid. If we are truly interested in helping Californians get affordable health care, we need to put all our effort behind universal single-payer care. That is the only method by which everyone will get health care they can afford.

Well, that's it, I guess California can be bought off for the right price.  California produces vast amounts of produce, but most of it doesn't fall under the subsidies of the farm bill. Most of that goes to making sure that corn syrup is vastly underpriced so that Coca-Cola can continue to rot our teeth.  Well, to get concessions on the farm bill, some of the big farm bill legislators have tossed California a bone: 

Senate Democrats announced a breakthrough in a long-stalled farm bill Wednesday that would provide billions of dollars for California fruit and vegetable marketing, farm conservation and food stamps – but would maintain costly, traditional crop subsidies for corn, wheat, cotton, rice and soybeans. (SF Chron 10/18/07)

  All well and good, but it doesn't really go to the heart of the issue. Flip.

I think orangeclouds115 and farmbillgirl know more about the farm bill than I. But what I do know, is that no real reform is happening. We continue to subsidize corn, mostly because that's what we've always done. It doesn't make sense financially, and it certainly doesn't make sense agriculturally. Yet we persist:

But it was unclear whether the deal would appease the unusual left-right alliance of reformers hoping to change the 70-year-old system of crop subsidies that they contend has speeded farm industrialization, harmed the environment and contributed to the nation's obesity epidemic. Fruit and vegetable growers said they might not be happy, either.

*** 

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said he has broad support on his committee, a bastion of traditional farm interests, and plans a vote as early as next Wednesday. The deal fended off powerful opposition from subsidy supporters in both parties from the South and Midwest who threatened to thwart any compromise that reduced their subsidies. Harkin conceded that the agreement was not a big break with the past. “Farm programs don't take sharp turns, but we do try to bend the rails a little bit,” Harkin said.

No, sharp turns are for wimps. We persist in our mistakes! 

The figures for FundRace 2008 Q3 (Third Quarter Ending September 30, 2007) have been released from the Federal Elections Commission.  According to 2decide.com, the Republican Candidates for President raised the following amounts during Campaign 2008 Q3:

Romney:  $18.4 million
Thompson:  $12.8 million
Guiliani:  $11.6 million
McCain:  $5.7 million
Paul:  $5.3 million
Huckabee:  $1.0 million
Brownback:  $0.9 million
Tancredo:  $0.8 million
Hunter:  $0.5 million

The leading Candidates in the FundRace 2008 Q3 Nationwide are Romney, Thompson, and Giuliani.  The two leading fundraisers are therefore both archconservatives on the National level.  However, Romney’s fundraising is artificially inflated (just like his poll numbers) due to his loan to himself in the amount of $8.5 million.  Nevertheless, two of the top three fundraisers are still archconservative by any standard.  Huckabee, Brownback, Tancredo, and Hunter raised very little funds in comparison to the others.

In the Coachella Valley (i.e., Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Desert Hot Springs, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, Coachella, and Indio), the Republican Candidates for President raised the following amounts during Campaign 2008 Q3 see BlueBeaumontBoyz’ Coachella Valley: Republican FundRace 2008 Q3

McCain:  $17, 213
Giuliani:  $17, 125
Romney:  $10, 685
Thompson:  $1,725
Paul:  $1,100
Brownback:  $1,000
Huckabee:  $0
Hunter:  $0
Tancredo:  $0

The leading Candidates in FundRace 2008 Q3 in the Coachella Valley are McCain, Giuliani, and Romney.  Thompson, Paul, Brownback, Huckabee, Hunter, and Tancredo raised nothing or next to it during Q3.

Although McCain leads the pack in the Coachella Valley during Q3, he lagged significantly behind the leaders Nationwide.  On the other hand, although Thompson was in the top two fundraisers Nationwide during Q3, he lagged behind significantly in the Coachella Valley.

Of note, the leading fundraisers in the Coachella Valley are seen as more moderate than those on the National level.  Therefore, the leading fundraisers on the National level are probably out-of-step with the Coachella Valley, being more conservative than this area.  This may cause a problem for Republicans locally should one of the more conservative Republicans win the nomination.

Amendment V. “…nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

In 1791 the United States Congress, comprised of property owners, passed the above as part of the Bill of Rights, designed to strictly limit the powers of the new federal government. Over the years this has sufficed for most as a balance between individual property rights and the need to subordinate those rights, on occasion, to the public good. Combined with the Fourteenth Amendment this provision ensures that any taking of property will be compensated fairly.

However, in the 200+ years that have elapsed, a more extreme view has emerged. To believe that the Constitution is an insufficient guarantee is to take a radical view of property rights. It assumes that not only does one have a right to own property, but to derive the maximum amount of income possible from that property no matter what method is used to attain it. That extremist view was not held by those who authored the Constitution, or by courts that have for 200 years been interpreting that Constitution, or by those who have been making law under that Constitution.

And if one has that extremist view of property rights – that private ownership of property is not or should not be subject to any controls or limits of regulations – THEN you will see eminent domain in the same category as rent control, as environmental laws, etc.

Here in California this view is promoted by, among others, the Howard Jarvis Association. And that’s why they use eminent domain as a wedge to push unpopular and unfair ideas like ending rent control – not just because they enjoy Trojan Horses (though they surely do) but also because it fits their extremist logic.

Most Americans instead believe that the public should be able to legislate the use of property, within reasonable bounds. Very few Americans have agreed with the extremist view that any regulatory act is a “taking” – as the rejection of Prop 90, I-933, and Howie Rich’s other efforts last year proved.

Now to rent control. The notion that rent control actually hurts renters, that they’re better off without rent control, is a theory that only makes sense in an Economics Department seminar room. In lived reality rent control has been proved to be the far greater aid to renters.

The argument against rent control – one that we’ve seen employed in these comments – is that it creates a disincentive to build new rental housing stock, creating a demand crisis and driving up rents. But California rent control laws have been significantly weakened since Costa-Hawkins passed in 1999. And yet rents are STILL sky-high, are STILL unaffordable, and very little new rental stock has been added in California in the last 8 years, certainly not enough to meet the demand.

It’s not just in SF where this is a problem – the Central Valley and Southern California experience this crisis too. In Seattle, where rent control is barred by state law, a massive building boom has done nothing to increase the supply. The theory has failed. The absence of rent control has done nothing to aid renters through supply and demand.

Why has the theory failed? Because it assumes rental housing markets exist outside of other real estate markets. San Francisco, for example, has had a housing crisis for nearly 70 years. With land values being so high in the urban cores, it is extremely expensive to redevelop existing blocks to hold more rental units. To recoup the cost, a developer would have to rent the units out at a rate much higher than most folks can afford. Further, in a hot housing market, developers can make much more money building condos. Worse, landlords can make more money by converting apartments to condos.

Instead of being helped by supply and demand, renters face unaffordable rent increases, as Paul Hogarth explained earlier this week. Paul Rosenberg has written today about the California Budget Project study that demonstrated the actual cost of living to Californians is far higher than the federal poverty line. Much of that comes from housing costs, hurting renters in particular.

Any of us who rent have felt this first-hand. I was hit with three $100 increases in my rent in the year before I moved down from Seattle. Here in CA I’m thankful we’ve not had any rent increases so far, but I fully expect one before long.

Renters do not have the earning power to absorb these hits. Renting is an inelastic market. It does not quickly respond to demand pressures. Those who face huge rent increases have two choices – pay or move. Because rental units are in such short supply, moving is not always an option.

And thus the need for rent control. Rent control *works* because its intended purpose is to protect renters from being bankrupted.

Further, it’s democratic. This is ultimately what I do not understand about the anti-rent control argument. Why is it wrong for voters to regulate the market in which they live? Why is democracy bad when it comes to business? Why should an abstract theory be given precedence over our sovereign rights as citizens and as voters?