July 2023 Newsletter Articles
In the July edition of the BayAreaGOP.com we have highlighted some insightful commentary by three important California organizations: Stanford University’s Hoover Institution; Opportunity Now, a Silicon Valley news and commentary website; and Cal Matters, a non-profit California news organization. Each one plays an important role in our Bay Area community.
On A Quest To Impose Moral Authority, Gavin Newsom Loses His Way
By: Lee Ohanian, Hoover Institution
California governor Gavin Newsom was described as “angry” in an interview this week with the New York Times. But Newsom wasn’t angry about any of California’s glaring problems, such as a K–12 education system in which only about one out of four students is proficient in math, reading, and science; or that 35% of Californians—more than 13 million people—live in or near poverty; or that the state auditor cites several major state government departments, ranging from the prison system to the Department of Public Health, as being at high risk for waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement; or the fact that only 17% of Californians can afford the state’s median-priced home, as home building in the state remains 87 percent below goal for Newsom’s 2018 campaign pledge of creating a “Marshall Plan” for housing.
Despite California’s immense wealth, millions remain mired in poverty
By Dan Walters, Cal Matters
As if it needed one, California received a new reminder Tuesday that, despite its trappings of sybaritic wealth, it’s home to millions of families that struggle each day to put roofs over their heads and food in their bellies.
United Ways of California issued updated calculations of real world poverty, revealing that 34% of the state’s families lack enough income to meet basic living costs, primarily because those costs – particularly for housing – are extraordinarily high.
The estimate is based on 2021 data, but there’s no reason to believe the situation has improved significantly, if at all, since then.
Opinion: CA shouldn’t strengthen its public housing bureaucracy
Opportunity Now
Assemblymembers Alex Lee and Ash Kalra (D-SJ) coauthored AB 309, which would establish a CA’n agency over “social housing”—publicly funded affordable units in mixed-income neighborhoods. However, the Atlantic questions if gov’t should even be in the property management business, pointing to rampant red tape issues in developments across the U.S.