Los Angeles solves poverty with $1k a month for doing nothing

Go west, man. LA will pay you for your sign-making skills!

Poe sends in this article. More brilliance from the Left Coast. Los Angeles was, just a few months ago, facing a $550 million budget shortfall. They were preparing to stop paying their bills. Well along comes the Democrats’ massive COVID stimulus, which greatly benefited cities and states that poorly managed their finances (which, surprise, are overwhelmingly Democrat ?). In a month they went from being a half-billion dollars behind to three-quarters of a billion dollars in the black. Mayor Garcetti was “ecstatic” they reported. I just bet he was.

Los Angeles, flush with cash like a sailor going ashore, have come up with some winners from the Good Idea Fairy. Like this one, they’re now going to give the poor $1k a month for three years, just for being poor. Doesn’t sound like there are any requirements to receive the money. Nothing requiring them to look for employment, go to school, take a money budgeting/management course (ironically, they could attend this class with the LA City Board of Supervisors), not use street drugs, and so forth.

From the article;

Democrats in Los Angeles County established a “Guaranteed Income Program” pilot project that will provide 1,000 poorer citizens with $1,000 per month of taxpayer money for three years. The program will cost at least $12 million. [Editor’s note; Author’s math is way off. It’ll cost at least $36m.] 

The measure was passed 4 to 1 by the city’s Board of Supervisors. Democrats Holly Mitchell and Sheila Kuehl co-authored the proposal, arguing that “[p]rior to the COVID-19 epidemic, the safety net failed to address the structural issues that have been keeping many children and their families trapped in poverty.” Mitchell and Kuehl cited a 2019 study by the leftist think tank Center for American Progress to argue that economic differences between blacks and whites indicate inequity.

“Racial discrimination by employers continues to be a significant factor,” the measure states. “Housing discrimination and exclusionary zoning have kept Black families and other families of color locked out of neighborhoods from which good jobs, good schools, parks, and community amenities are easily accessible. We must fundamentally shift the idea that people who face financial insecurity have somehow failed, and instead recognize that it is the inequity and lack of access built into our economy and government assistance programs that have failed us.”

One good thing about the American system of federalism (at least in theory) is that most issues are dealt with at the lowest level. In the case of housing and property zoning that is universally the city. I don’t know why LA admits they are discriminatory and racist against Black people in their own zoning. They also apparently don’t build parks, build community amenities, or ensure quality schools for their anti-Black neighborhoods. That seems wrong to me, but then I’m not a racist.

Category: "Teh Stoopid", "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Liberals suck