MONDAY MORNING MEMORANDUM

By Assemblyman Ray Haynes
June 5, 2006



32 Studies And 13 Commissions

This was a deadline week in the California Legislature. That means the Senate and Assembly worked to get bills out of their respective houses to “make new laws” for this year. As a believer in small government, that means I had absolutely no bills up for a vote this week.

But—the socialists in the Legislature did. In fact, the Assembly approved bills that would initiate 32 new studies, 13 new commissions, 4 new task forces, and a variety of new regulatory powers in government. We wanted to study everything from Asian food to flood plains, and we set up commissions to study everything from mental health to job creation. It is an axiom of government—nothing happens unless thousands of bureaucrats sit around in offices and think about it for extended periods of times, kill lots of trees to write thousands of reports, and announce to the world just how smart they are about whatever it is that they are studying. All in all, it is a waste of time and taxpayer money.

Two bills struck me particularly. AB 1899 by Lois Wolk, which would require the state to study flood plains, and prevent cities from building in areas where there is a chance that there might be a flood in the next 200 years. The other was AB 2378 by Noreen Evans which would prevent people who bought a house from keeping the equity in that home.

I believe in freedom. I believe that the government that governs least governs best. I believe that, as Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence, that the purpose of government is to protect the right to life, liberty, and economic liberty (the so-called “pursuit of happiness”). I also know that if government does not protect property rights, political liberty is an illusion. No one will speak out against a government that threatens to take away their wealth or property.

Which brings us to the Wolk bill. Assemblywoman Wolk believes that, unless the state government stops people from building houses in areas that might flood in the next 200 years, people might be hurt. Of course, there aren’t many places in California that won’t flood sometime in the next 200 years. Which means that very few, if any; houses will be built in California if Ms Wolk’s bill actually passes. As a result, since people will still want to buy houses, and there will be no new houses, the price of existing houses will go through the roof.

Which brings us to Ms. Evans bill. That bill imposes price restrictions on the sale of houses. Houses cost too much, we are told, and government must control the price if people are going to be able to buy them.

So, on the one hand, one bill prohibits houses from being built, and, on the other, when economics takes over and increases the price of existing houses, government will control the price of those houses, and prevent people from profiting “too much” from the housing shortage created by foolish government regulations.

We study whether or not we need new regulations, pass the new regulations the studies say we need, and then wonder why our economy is falling apart, as the new regulations make it impossible for business to satisfy our basic needs. Housing costs too much because government has made it impossible to build new housing, and then, to control the byproduct of excessive government regulation, government creates new government regulations.

I really don’t think Californians realize how close we are to the Soviet socialism that caused its government to collapse. Unfortunately, neither does the California Legislature.