The Watsonville, Calif., City Council recently banned retailers from using plastic bags. Stores now charge customers for paper bags. The city, at taxpayers’ expense, is distributing reusable bags. This initiative was such a priority for the council that it overrode protests from consumers and residents’ concerns that reusable bags breed bacteria. Meanwhile, there is such a large and growing gang problem in Watsonville that it has “teen violence counselors.” Violent crime is up 20 percent since 2006, with a rate more than 50 percent higher than the national average and nearly 50 percent higher than California’s. Unemployment in Watsonville stands at a staggering 27 percent. Government entities make up three of the city’s four largest employers.
But at least the town is safe from plastic bags.
In Glendale, 300 miles to the south, residents installed artificial grass that doesn’t need water or chemicals. Its city council responded by banning faux grass on front lawns, claiming that its manufacture consumes too much energy. Anti-turfers also believe fake grass retains heat and could lead to — global warming! Still, only plastic grass in the front yard is problematic; back yards are OK.
It costs thousands to remove the stuff, and the city is issuing criminal citations to the noncompliant. Perhaps the council can hire Glendale’s 10.3 percent unemployed as grass police.
California sales taxes are highest in the nation and personal income taxes second. It has more regulations than any other state and the second-highest state gas tax.
In 2010, California lost 4,632 businesses — second only to Michigan. Last year, when Chino’s Bing Energy decided to move its corporate headquarters to lower-tax Florida, CEO Dean Minardi noted, “I can’t imagine any corporation in their right mind would … set up in California today.”
It is no wonder. The Chief Executive Group has designated California the worst state for business. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce puts it in the lowest tier in a study on the negative impact of government on jobs. Golden-years Golden Staters don’t fare any better — Kiplinger’s lists it among the five worst states for retirees.
So what are state officials doing to address massive fiscal problems?
The legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown recently studied — then banned — kosher Coca-Cola. San Carlos and San Jose are “researching” whether to ban foam food containers. San Carlos is in such dire fiscal straits that it has shuttered its police department. Its restaurants, integral to its economy, oppose the ban.
San Jose has the second-highest cost of living in America, plummeting tax revenues and an unsustainable bureaucracy. Fifty-two percent of locals oppose the war on foam, but its City Council is circumventing a public vote.
Perhaps you see a pattern. State and local governments in California are obsessed with trivialities. They are harming residents with arbitrary, business-unfriendly laws that will produce no noticeable positive effect for anyone. Meanwhile, they are ignoring massive real-world problems and using these unimportant issues to deflect from them.
Nero supposedly provided musical entertainment for his subjects while the city of Rome burned. Many historians believe that this legend is unjust to the late, maligned emperor, but it would apply pretty well to a large number of California politicians.
Kerri Toloczko is senior vice president for policy with the Institute for Liberty, a free-market public policy organization located in Washington.
