Miracle: Sacramento MSM laments California’s mass poverty

For months, Cal Watchdog, U-T San Diego columnist Steven Greenhut and the U-T editorial page have drawn attention to the fact that under a new measure of poverty introduced by the Census Bureau in November 2012, California has the worst rate in the country. Why? Because of the high cost of living. Now the Sacramento media establishment, or at least one of its most prominent members, has finally chosen to both acknowledge this fact and its implications. Take it away, Dan Walters.

“Living costs may not be particularly burdensome for those at the top of the economic ladder – the fortunate folks who live in Beverly Hills, Hillsborough or other affluent enclaves. But they do affect those on the middle and lower rungs, as a new Census Bureau report underscores.

“California’s official poverty rate of 16.5 percent is somewhat higher than the national rate of 15.1 percent, but under an alternative Census Bureau method of calculating poverty that includes cost of living, our poverty rate soars to – by far – the highest rate of any state. Nearly a quarter of Californians, 23.8 percent, live in poverty.

“This is, or should be, a matter of shame, especially for politicians who profess to represent society’s underdogs but who enact policies that raise their struggling constituents’ cost of living, or inhibit the creation of jobs that would lift poor Californians out of poverty. … [While] the state’s media and political elites may sneer at Texas and other states that lack our mild weather and scenic attributes, they should note that Texas’ poverty rate is just two-thirds of California’s and Iowa’s is just one-third.”

But don’t expect the anti-Texas sneering to stop. It’s just one part of an overall mindset in the Obama era, in which the left views the right as not just wrong on politics but as pathetic, racist inferior beings. Admitting that a conservative state is better governed than California? Admitting that there are far fewer poor people in Texas than the Golden State? In San Francisco, west Los Angeles and Democratic legislative chambers, that’s akin to hate speech. The CalBuzzers are probably laughing themselves silly at the very thought these facts might be true.