Description

Democrats are supposed to work towards the goal of social justice, right? So why is it that so many policies supported by California Democrats end up harming poor people and minorities? Reason.tv's Paul Feine sat down with journalist Chris Reed to talk about public employee unions, welfare reform, Walmart, the drug war, and environmental regulations. Chris Reed is an editorial writer for the San Diego Union Tribune.

Transcript

What’s the matter with San Francisco? What’ the matter with California? What’s the matter with democrats in the state? The record file don’t realize, what do folks are voting for are doing with that power, it has very little to do with social justice, and everything to do with protecting special interests who don’t give a rat’s ass about the poor by enlarge. I’m Chris Reed, I’m an editorial writer for the San Diego Union Tribune and I also host radio show part time on Cogo 600 AM in San Diego. What’s going in California is astonishing and it represents essentially our repudiation of democratic ideals. Democrats dominate the state but they’re supposed to be originally, all about social justice or at least sense the new deal in the 1930’s. The Democrats are supposed to be about protecting the poor people that are in trial, and those who can’t help themselves. But an issue after an issue, the Democratic Party in California uses its power in ways that hurt the poor and hurt the down trodden especially the minorities that they supposedly champion. The worst single story to appear last year in the Los Angeles Times had to do with the proposal by some parents in a South Los Angeles District to set up a charter school. They were really unhappy with their school. Under state laws, constants by democrats, poor schools almost always end up with variant experienced teachers who are often subject to turn over. So you have a disconnect faculty and you have, you know, not a right setting for educational form. There’s no Jaime Escalante at the school. So anyway, the parents proposed signing up for Charter School in South LA, and what happens, anonymous lifts are deposited at the site, where they want to have the meeting to organize the Charter School. The people who come risk deportation. Now, nobody knows who did this. But there’s only one suspect, members of the United Teachers Los Angeles, nobody else has a motive to try to sandbag Charter Schools. And nobody else has such a hate for the Charter Schools that they would actually threatened Latino’s, that if you’re an illegal immigrant are you sure that this is something you want to do? Every summer, sometimes stretching into the fall, and whether times are good or bad the law hanging fruit are always cuts in programs for social services. I did some research on this, for 2002 to 2007. This appeared when revenue in California was exploding because the house of 02:29, probably a 1/3 or more increased in state revenue. Over that period, the budget for the state department of social services which handles child and family welfare program, aid to the blind or death food stamps and more, it went up from 8.2 billion to 9 billion about to radium inflation. Meanwhile, the budget for schools up to 40%, imprisons up 88%, in other words, teachers and prison guards. This is social justice? It doesn’t look that way to me. Another example, the democrats' offer of how they’re sticking up for poor people’s interests is perverse. It has to do with their opposition to implementation of the 1996 federal welfare reformat. California has something like 1/3 of an Asian’s welfare clients and 1/6 of the population. Why? Because California has refused to implement welfare reform. Now, welfare reform is broadly described by many folks across the spectrum as one of the great anti poverty programs of mark in American history. Because it really did forced millions of people to change their lifestyles and actively seek work. So, the perverse thing is the democrats are bragging about sandbagging in anti poverty program, but it gets even worse than that. I have seen total evidence, that one of the reasons that they maybe opposing welfare reform or sandbagging is because they want to protect government jobs. There used to be a law maker from San Fernando Valley, a very thoughtful and an unusual guy, a moderate republican doctor named Keith Richmond; he didn’t fit the cookie coater mold of democrats and republicans and either side of this ice ideological divides. He really believed that government healthcare should be made available to poor people, to minorities, because its there, its budgeted, it’s just unutilized. It’s something like a third or half of kids where eligible and haven’t been signing up. So he proposed setting up an online system to register kids for free California healthcare programs. And he was told, forget about it. Because it could lead to a loss of jobs at the county office for folks register for healthcare for their kids, you can’t make the step up. The idea that Wal-Mart is the enemy of poor people is just bizarre on its face. Jason Forman who’s now an economist to works for President Obama, used to work for John Carrey before that, worked for Bill Clinton, in 2005 wrote that Wal-Mart is an inarguably a progressive force because racing folks, standard of leaving, helps people specially poor people, but in San Diego as in though out California. Democrats have lined up behind the idea that cheap groceries are social evil. What? What does it has to do with social justice, keeping people from making ends meet. Wal-Mart, a single Wal-Mart does more to help social justice than it does in democratic law makers. Well, the rejection of Prop19 means, we’re going to see the continuation of the status quo of the drug war in California. And once again, the social justice question comes to the fore. We had studies that as recently as few weeks ago that point out that minority used marijuana less than white folks but are just proportionally punished. Doesn’t this suggest that social justice advocates that the drug war isn’t exactly helping the people that are supposedly care about? Now, in the old days, the notion was well democrats were a little better on this issue than republicans. Nowadays, there's not a dime worth of difference between the two. I sat in this very office, grilled Jerry Brown a couple times about the drug war, and he would have none of it. 40 years into a drug wag when we finally have, you know, our paradigm shift, our perfidy, and acknowledge that it’s been a failure. Well, in California the democrats were part of the opposition to Prop19. There is part of the one he said, we got to keep with the status quo. How long does the status quo have to be a complete flap before you give up on it? The disconnect between the interest of the environmentalists and the interest of the working class, the lower social economic groups in California is a mess. For example, the Central Valley, we have a 40% unemployment now in part of Central Valley, and that’s primary Latino farm workers, because of what is fairly described as manmade droughts. Environmental rules that prevent water from getting to farms and yet we have spectacles like Sacramento congressman Doris Matsui, who grew up on this farm in the Central Valley, opposing efforts to provide emergency relief. Now, is this social justice to care more about fish than about humans, about the farm workers? I don’t think so. In San Diego, you see minority business after minority business, small and less capitalized. Basically, either having to shut down most operations or to lose a great portion or resource or just to shut down completely because of air board rules. Men to cut down on diesel pollution. Now this is not social justice to come up with rules that uniquely punished, really, and uniquely put out of business the less capitalized firms. In effect it’s a soft to big business by eliminating their small competitors by having this incredibly owners in costing new regulations. In California, views itself as a leading environmentalist in the world. And maybe 30-40 years ago that made sense when fighting for safer cars but in this point, fighting for environmental rules that only make it more and more difficult to find jobs in category after category. And the progress that’s been made on air water pollution is marginal. It’s not a primary stuff anymore. On the margin, they’re finding in ways that hurt people day after day after day. AB 32 is a state’s landmark entire global warning law passed in 2006 forcing us which to cleaner but cost our energy. Now, apart from the fact that its crazy for single state to go unitarily and do what it would take to be a world wide effort to make substantial gains in. The fact is this is just an assault on poor people, it’s going to force up the cost of retail energy by 40-60%. And so California which already has 12% unemployment will have a uniquely uncompetitive business environment. We’re already 51st out of 50 states according to the CEOs of the America, they also included Washington DC. And now, we’re going to add, on top of that, retail energy cost of 40-60% hire, new mandates on businesses that they have to do a variety of things comply with this entire green house gas schools. We may look back on the years of 12% unemployment as good old days, we’re all going to suffer, but who’s going to suffer the most? Who is the least to equip to deal with economic downturn? Poor folks without savings, poor folks without the educational resources must relate to find new jobs. This is social justice? It’s not my idea of social justice.