Gavin Newsom’s Homeless Accountability Veto
It’s difficult to keep the public money flowing to people on the right side of history if you start to measure their effectiveness. This kind of veto just stokes the feeling that we’re paying people for being virtuous instead of fighting a human tragedy increasingly played out in the commons.
‘Sunshine may be the best political disinfectant, unless you live in California where there’s never accountability or transparency for government spending. Last week Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill passed unanimously by his Legislature to require the state to report the results of its homeless spending.
‘A state audit in April revealed that California has spent $24 billion to combat homelessness over five years, even as the numbers camping on streets increased by tens of thousands. Auditor Grant Parks identified at least 30 programs “dedicated to preventing and ending homelessness,” but agencies didn’t collect data on them or analyze if they worked.’
Will an Increase in the Minimum Wage Give America a Raise? No.
Companies pay wages for productive labor. If you raise the threshold of productivity required to hire someone, well, fewer people are going to qualify for jobs. Raising the minimum wage is a way to increase dependency on welfare bureaucracies. It is a way for these agencies to acquire resources. It is not something that works to reduce income inequality.
‘The minimum wage law is not a floor under wages, which boosts them, the higher it is. Rather, it is a hurdle, and the loftier it is, the more difficult it is to jump over it into employment. It attacks the weakest economic actors in our society. Before the enactment of this law, the unemployment rate of blacks and whites, youngsters and middle-agers, was about the same. Afterward, the joblessness rate rose to double for blacks over whites, yet again double for adolescents vis-à-vis adults, and quadruple (this is not a misprint) for black male teens compared to mature white men. This is a total and unmitigated disaster.’
Innocent spouse gets caught in IRS bureaucracy
Woman is married, filing taxes jointly. Her husband does the filing. IRS claims that they underpaid. They are no longer married, by the way. IRS is now going after her. She asks to see the return he filed on their behalf. IRS says, you can’t see it because it’s a privacy violation. Now pay up.
‘Emoke doesn’t know where her tax bill stems from other than that it was for the 2019 tax year. Her then-husband was a tennis instructor who had a stroke that year — so he wasn’t working, much less earning enough to incur such a high tax burden. Emoke was the primary income earner, working 120 hours a week and taking in $96,700.
‘She doesn’t know if her former husband (whom she divorced in 2023) had filed an improper tax return. When she asked the IRS to see a copy of the tax return at issue, the government refused because her ex-husband had not consented.’
Arizona School Choice Program Comes Under Bureaucratic Attack
School choice is popular in Arizona. The Governor and the Attorney-General don’t like it. So lacking the political support to attack it, they go after it through the bureaucratic back door, changing the rules to make it extraordinarily and unduly difficult for those on the other side.
Remember this when a politician tells you that they wouldn’t ban X. They don’t have to if the regulations can do the heavy political lifting for them.
‘It's no surprise that Hobbs, Mayes, and company are targeting school choice with red tape rather than through legislation or at the ballot box. The GOP controls both houses of the legislature and supports school choice. Speaker of the House Ben Toma urged the Department of Education to ignore the attorney general's foray into education issues. State residents also favor choice. A September survey of Arizonans found 67 percent support for the ESA program—72 percent among parents of school-age children. That's very close to the 65 percent support for ESAs in a 2022 Data Orbital survey. If given a choice, the people of this state will keep ESAs, so opponents of education freedom are trying to make the program difficult and legally fraught to use.’
Senate proposal would allow jury trials, cut bureaucracy for Camp Lejeune water victims
It is remarkably difficult to sue the government. The corollary of this is that they don’t learn from their bad behavior.
‘A North Carolina U.S. Senator and several colleagues from both sides of the aisle have introduced a bill that clarifies that victims of the water contamination aboard Camp Lejeune have the right to jury trials and a lesser burden to prove their illnesses were caused by the toxic water.
‘The bipartisan Ensuring Justice for Camp Lejeune Victims Act also caps attorneys’ fees and expands jurisdiction to alleviate the backlog of claims.
‘Republican U.S. Senator Thom Tillis said victims exposed to contaminated water at Camp Lejeune are running into roadblocks that are denying them their day in court before a jury for often-crippling and deadly medical conditions, and the bill would bring justice for victims and provide a path forward for justice after decades of delay.
‘North Carolina GOP U.S. Senator Ted Budd said instead of justice, DOJ bureaucrats have been throwing up roadblocks and making it harder for veterans to get their day in court.’
Countries, businesses and trade officials urge EU to rethink deforestation regulation
If companies cannot prove that their products are linked to deforestation, they won’t be able to sell them in the EU starting in December. Tracking this through the value chain could be tough.
Compliance? That’s the other guy’s problem.
‘A growing number of governments, international trade organizations and businesses are urging the European Union to reconsider a deforestation regulation set to take effect in December.
‘Critics of the regulation say it will discriminate against countries with forest resources and hurt their exports. Supporters of the EU Deforestation Regulation, EUDR for short, say it will help combat forest degradation on a global scale.’
The EU Considers Changing the EU AI Liability Directive into a Software Liability Regulation
EU bureaucrats really don’t want to participate in the AI revolution, do they?
‘The AI Liability Directive was proposed to establish harmonised rules in fault-based claims (e.g., negligence). These were to cover the disclosure of evidence on high-risk artificial intelligence (“AI”) systems and the burden of proof including, in certain circumstances, a rebuttable presumption of causation between the fault of the defendant (i.e., the provider or deployer of an AI system) and the output produced by the AI system or the failure of the AI system to produce an output.’
What’s Next For AI Safety Regulations After California’s Bill Failed
Not a lot of urgency on the AI legislation front.
‘These state-level bills have become the primary focus for those looking to advance AI regulation as federal attempts in Congress have frequently stalled and defeated by gridlock, including some less controversial measures. Passage of California’s bill into law could have prompted federal action as lawmakers may have been eager to create their own regulations in response to the state’s action. This initiative would likely have been slow and not finished in the current Congress, but groundwork for future legislation may have been created. AI regulation continues to be a priority for lawmakers, but there is a lack of urgency to act for most, which makes negotiating difficult, particularly in an election year. Next year could prove different, but the prospects of legislation will depend on the outcome of this year’s elections and the other priorities lawmakers want to tackle.’