Category: Blogs

Old Debate: Homelessness and Reagan

Is deinstitutionalization still the cause of homelessness, after 56 years?

Ronald Reagan's inaugural address 1981In late 1980 and early 1981, interest rates hovered around 15%, unemployment was at 11%, and economists visualized a crises.  That is the backdrop of Ronald Reagan’s inaugural address .  In that address, Reagan said,

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we’ve been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?

These 74 words became a battle cry of both conservatives and progressives. Conservatives see Reagan’s words as warning against relying on government. Progressives see the same words as proof of the folly of not relying on government.

A favorite topic for battle is homelessness. In 1967, while Governor of California, Reagan signed the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act which ended the practice of institutionalizing patients against their will for indefinite amounts of time. At that time, there were 22,000 patients in state mental hospitals. By 1973, there were 7,000. Community clinics with the help of newly-developed medication assumed responsibility for patient care. In 1981, as President, Reagan signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. The legislation created block grants for states, but reduced federal spending on mental illness.

To this day in 2017, more than half a century after the signing of the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act and 37 years after the Omnibus Budget Act, progressives are still convinced that closing the state mental hospitals is the cause of present homelessness.

However, 56 years seems ample time to reopen state mental hospitals, where the mentally challenged can be warehoused out of sight and out of mind with or without their consent, if that is what Reagan critics desire.

Solar Power Plants – Far from Pristine

Moral of the story: We need to know what we are signing up for.

Solar Plant 2One way to success is to highlight a “crisis” and then pile on “solutions.” Al Gore made climate change the biggest crisis ever, and solutions just poured in. Terms like alternative energy, carbon footprint, sustainable development, walkable cities, transit corridors just sprang up. And government (taxpayers) started subsidizing anything that looked like it fought climate change. Here is a story about a federally subsidized solar power plant in California, Ivanpah.

In order to meet its production goals, Ivanpah needs to burn natural gas at night to keep the system primed and to heat water used in tower boilers. It also needs to burn natural gas when the sun is not shinning. Natural gas, although cleaner than coal, still is not “clean” energy.

So, how come Ivanpah qualifies under state rules as an alternative energy source? Because the natural gas is burned at night. Daytime burning of natural gas is what counts as bad.  This quote from a good article on the subject in The Press Enterprise Local expresses the frustration that can come with the realization of how solar power plants work:

Given the high-level of public investment, the plant’s natural gas use should have been better publicly disclosed before the project was approved, said David Lamfrom, California desert manager for the National Parks Conservation Association.
“The bottom line is the public didn’t expect this project to consume this much natural gas,” Lamfrom said in a telephone interview. “We did not have full knowledge that this was what we were signing up for.”

Not having full knowledge of what we are signing up for is the rule, not the exception. Deciders on the Ivanpah subsidies were correct that solar power is a good thing, since it does not use by itself finite resources such as coal and leaves a cleaner footprint than coal. However, they should also have known that we are years away from finding a realistic way to store solar energy for times when the sun does not shine, necessitating the use of natural gas for volume solar power production.

Massive Housing Programs and Massive Messes

The Fair Housing Act was only “fair” to white people.

public housing 2A recent interview on National Public Radio’s program Fresh Air discussed the federal government’s hand at segregating America’s suburbs during the 1930s through the 1950s. The Fair Housing Act of 1934 was established to facilitate financing and construction of housing, in response to what the federal government perceived as a “housing shortage.” Problem was the act aimed at providing housing for white families only. Vast tracks of suburban residential housing carried covenants that specified homes could be sold only to white families. We are all feeling the results of those misguided decisions to this day.

Government is populated by fallible people, just like any other group. When we allow or incentivize government to undertake massive endeavors, we might end up with massive unintended consequences.

Today the descriptive term has escalated to “housing crisis.” And again, especially in large metropolitan areas, there is massive government intervention in the form of central planning, subsidies, zoning, developer incentives, and a tsunami of new laws and financing proposals.

What will be the effects of the 2015 presidential executive order Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing or California’s Senate Bill 35, both mandating that every community build their “fair share” of housing at all levels of income – whether the community can afford it or not. But for these mandates to come true, they need financing, such as voter-approved housing bonds. Before we vote “yes,” let’s read the fine print.

Government vs Governance

Government is by elected officials. Governance is by unelected bureaucrats.

BadGuy 2Often the words government and governance are used interchangeably.  However, these words carry significantly different meanings.  Government is by elected officials and laws chosen at the ballot box.  Governance is by unelected bureaucrats who establish rules and regulations.

Today the trend is to create mega agencies, such as Metropolitan Planning Organizations (more on that soon).  Employees of these agencies plan land use and transportation, two of the most significant aspect of our lives.  Yet no one is elected to the posts they hold within those agencies.  Who do voters kick out of office if need be?  Do voters spend time studying organization charts to ultimately find who appointed whom?

Sometimes best to Just Vote NO

How many laws are too many laws?

PromisesIn a republic, voters pick who represents them at the various levels of government and they pick proposed laws on the ballot — often a daunting task.  Ballots get longer and levels of government proliferate.  What started in 1787 as a straightforward social contract is now a maze of laws and regulations.  Besides the national maze, we have state, county, and city equivalents.  Additionally, at the local levels of government there are numerous boards and committees.

So, when we enter the ballot box, do we really vote for what is to our benefit?  Probably not.