California wants to look after its people, so it keeps expanding its social safety net. It also wants to welcome all comers and so embraces illegal immigrants and protects them in sanctuary cities.
To see how this is working out, visit Skid Row in L.A. or neighborhoods in San Francisco or elsewhere where homeless camps are spreading.
Caring for all Californians is made harder by the state importing as many non-Americans as possible.
It’s almost incredible, but also entirely characteristic, that California lawmakers have now decided to give healthcare free to nearly 100,000 illegal immigrants aged 19 to 25.
California has covered illegal immigrant children since 2016 under MediCal, the state’s version of Medicaid, at a cost of some $360 million. Now Gov. Gavin Newsom has agreed with state lawmakers to add another $98 million to California’s spending by expanding coverage to young adults.
Just as California lacks enough homes to house its inhabitants, so it also lacks enough doctors to care for them. The additional budget bloat on healthcare will worsen that shortage.
The promise of unlimited free stuff from the government isn’t just an unfunded liability. It’s also a magnet for illegal immigration. California already faces a border catastrophe. In the past year, its San Diego and El Centro border sectors have seen respective increases of 611% and 345% in family unit apprehensions. MediCal expansion creates incentives that will make that problem much worse.
If the damage were confined to California, one might be tempted to shrug and suggest that Californians choose themselves a better government. But the problem will spill over to the rest of the country, and to Americans who did not elect the irresponsible Sacramento government.
Border enforcement is mostly a federal responsibility, and we will all have to live with and deal with the consequences of an influx of illegal immigrants and a further strain on detention facilities’ ability to cope.
When California raises taxes to pay for foreigners’ healthcare, it weighs down on the federal budget because state and local taxes are partly deductible from federal income taxes. The rest of the country must subsidize more than $100 billion of spending by the Utopians in Sacramento.
When the Golden State’s finances deteriorate, watch for Sacramento to beg for a bailout. Even before then, the rest of America must foot the bill for California’s overstuffed classrooms, decaying infrastructure, and everything else funded federally.
The California dream of taking care of everyone’s needs is undermined by the California dream of open borders. State lawmakers were forced to choose between them, and they chose open borders. One must hope that one day the state’s voters choose different lawmakers.
