“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” so the saying goes. Unfortunately, California voters have been fooled (aka lied to) so many times by our political leaders that perhaps they have come to expect it. For a politician to actually keep his or her word is now the exception, not the rule.
And it’s not just voters who get fooled. Interest groups and other officials are often snookered by those with more political power. Several recent displays of this political behavior show beyond any doubt that promises made in Sacramento have an extraordinarily short shelf life.
The first example deals with California’s one-of-a-kind “cap and trade” law, a market-based regulatory system for incentivizing reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Under this program, impacted industries must pay for emitting greenhouse gases by purchasing credits at auction. The program was set to expire in 2020, but in 2017 there was a big political push to extend “cap and trade” in a way that would impose another huge cost to refineries and utilities, which would then pass those costs to California drivers, truckers and electricity customers.
Surprisingly, many industries forced into the “cap-and-trade” auctions supported the extension. They did so because they were threatened by Gov. Jerry Brown, environmental extremists and powerful regulators that if they didn’t, they’d be hit with an alternative program run completely by the government bureaucrats at the California Air Resources Board. Taxpayer groups, small-business interests and most Republicans opposed the extension because it would further raise California’s already sky-high cost of living. In addition to the cost, there was nothing in the political deal that guaranteed CARB wouldn’t move forward with punishing regulations anyway. …
With one-party rule as we have in this state, there is little danger facing pols that flat out lie. Republicans are irrelevant, Democrats will always maintain control, so accept the fact that this is the way things are. Or leave, like an increasing number are doing.