Californiafication: A Good Idea (for Conservatives)

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There’s been much talk of the “Californiafication” of Washington in recent days. Rich Yeselson summarizes the idea: “We are living through the Californiafication of America—a country in which the combination of a determined minority and a procedural supermajority legislative requirement makes it impossible to rationally address public policy challenges.” Kevin wrote about this on Friday:

All I can say is this: for years I was basically uninterested in Sacramento politics because it was such a cesspool.  It made Washington DC look like a model of good government.  But no longer: Sacramento is still a cesspool, but DC is catching up fast.  If we keep it up much longer, the entire country may end up in the same mess we’ve made for ourselves here.  That would be decidedly not a good thing.

Actually, if you’re a conservative, it might be a good thing. The Californiafication strategy makes it much easier to achieve otherwise-unpopular conservative policy goals like slashing health, education, and other popular government programs. (Remember, the largest parts of the federal budget—Social Security and Medicare—are also among the most popular. If you really wanted to drastically reduce the size of government and the tax burden, that’s where you’d go.) The strategy goes a little like this: first, make it politically or structurally impossible to raise taxes (check). Next, allow liberals to enact their policy goals—but without raising taxes to pay for them. Then, when a recession hits, revenue on existing taxes will crater and the budget deficit will explode. Spending will have to be cut drastically since it’s impossible to raise taxes—even more impossible now that there’s a recession. Voila: you’ve reduced the size of government. This seems like a great way to get around the fact that a political agenda centered around the idea that government shouldn’t try to solve people’s problems isn’t actually popular.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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