In an Op-Ed in the New York Times, rich liberals were blamed for the overwhelming poverty. That is especially true in ultra-liberal LA and San Francisco. The Op-Ed says it’s their policies that are driving the homelessness and poverty in our cities.
The tax burden drives up the cost of everything until many people cannot even afford an apartment to live in. Farhad Manjoo, who wrote the Op-Ed calls California a catastrophic success. The rich keep getting richer, while liberal policies they support have turned California into the state with the highest poverty rate in the nation.
“The basic problem is the steady collapse of livability. Across my home state, traffic and transportation is a developing-world nightmare. Child care and education seem impossible for all but the wealthiest. The problems of affordable housing and homelessness have surpassed all superlatives — what was a crisis is now an emergency that feels like a dystopian showcase of American inequality,” he adds.
“Just look at San Francisco, Nancy Pelosi’s city. One of every 11,600 residents is a billionaire, and the annual household income necessary to buy a median-priced home now tops $320,000. Yet the streets there are a plague of garbage and needles and feces, and every morning brings fresh horror stories,” he concludes.
The op-ed comes on the heels of a new report that Los Angeles garbage piles have grown so “high” they’re threatening to unleash a new epidemic throughout the nation’s second largest city.
“Rat-infested piles of rotting garbage left uncollected by the city of Los Angeles, even after promises to clean it up, are fueling concerns about a new epidemic after last year’s record number of flea-borne typhus cases,” reports NBC Los Angeles.