But not when it comes to efforts to roll back the newly enacted ban on single-use plastic bags:

The Attorney General of California has prepared the following title and summary of the chief purpose and points of the proposed measure:

REFERENDUM TO OVERTURN BAN ON SINGLE-USE PLASTIC BAGS. If signed by the required number of registered voters and timely filed with the Secretary of State, this petition will place on the statewide ballot a challenge to a state law previously approved by the Legislature and the Governor. The challenged law must then be approved by a majority of voters at the next statewide election to go into effect. The law prohibits grocery and certain other retail stores from providing single-use bags but permits sale of recycled paper bags and reusable bags.

That looks pretty neutral to me. Good for Kamala Harris.

Sac Bee spreads the green religion

Meanwhile, the propagandists are at it again, pretending that the case is overwhelming for the ban, instead of extremely mixed. This is from a sneering Sac Bee editorial:

It’s a true if gruesome fact that chickens that have been relieved of their heads sometimes run around for a while before they quite realize their irreversible predicament.

That appears to be happening to the plastic bag industry. It would explain why it hasn’t figured out that the ubiquitous single-use plastic grocery bag has just suffered a killing blow. Its days are numbered.

The very day the governor signed a statewide ban on single-use grocery bags, Sept. 30, the industry filed papers to start the process for a referendum. If it qualifies by gathering enough signatures, it will delay the July 2015 implementation of the ban until it can be decided by voters during the November 2016 election.

Then, the industry will spend many millions of dollars to try to trick Californians into thinking that it’s a good thing that billions of single-use plastic bags are clogging up our storm drains and rivers, tangling up in our native flora, filling up the oceans and doing God only knows what other environmental mischief.

The truth is not what Californians have been told

I defer to Jay Beeber’s assault on this green propaganda. This is from Reason’s website in 2012, when a bag ban was being considered in Los Angeles:

Proponents give three reasons for the bag ban. They claim it will reduce the amount of waste entering landfills, reduce litter on streets, and “help protect the environment.”

But banning free grocery bags will not achieve those lofty goals.

First, banning free plastic grocery bags won’t reduce waste. California’s Statewide Waste Characterization Study [pdf] shows that “Plastic Grocery and Other Merchandise Bags” consistently make up just 0.3 percent of the waste stream in the state. That’s three-tenths of 1 percent. In comparison, organic waste such as food and yard clippings makes up 32 percent while construction debris comprises about 30 percent. The effect of eliminating free grocery bags on the amount of waste generated in the city would be insignificant.

Second, despite misleading claims from environmental groups and the L.A. Bureau of Sanitation, banning free plastic grocery bags won’t do much to reduce litter in the public commons. Litter studies from across the country demonstrate that, on average, plastic retail bags make up about 1 percent to 2 percent of all litter.

Even that small amount of litter doesn’t decline when bans are enacted. In San Francisco, plastic bags comprised 0.6 percent of litter before the city banned plastic bags and 0.64 percent a year after the ban took effect [pdf, pg. 35]. Since plastic grocery bags make up less than 2 percent of roadside trash, banning them will affect neither the total amount of litter nor the cost of cleaning it up.

Third, banning free plastic grocery bags won’t reduce our consumption of foreign (or domestic) oil. L.A.’s Bureau of Sanitation claims [pdf] that “approximately 12 million barrels of oil go into the US supply of plastic bags.” But plastic bags made in the U.S. are not derived from oil; they’re made from a byproduct of domestic natural gas refinement. Manufacturing plastic grocery bags does not increase our need to import oil, and banning them in Los Angeles or anywhere else will not reduce US oil consumption.

Despite claims that plastics threaten our oceans and sea life, there is no evidence that free plastic grocery bags make up any significant portion of the plastic waste found on beaches or in the ocean. In fact, reports from environmental groups doing beach and ocean clean-ups show that plastic bags make up only about 2 percent of the debris.

The Bee acknowledges none of this. When you have a deep commitment to your faith, you don’t sweat the details. And, in the Bee’s case, you mock and taunt the heretics.

It’s insanely annoying how so many California defenders simply ignore basic facts like Texas is creating more middle-class jobs or that Texas’ Latino and black students do better than California’s in K-12 test scores such as the NAEP.

But it’s also pretty telling that so many Californians who tout Texas don’t acknowledge that for lots and lots of people, California’s lifestyle is so vastly more appealing that they’d rather live in a condo here than a 2,800-foot ranch home there.

I’m in that camp. I reject the idea that Texas is some primitive backwater. But where I live in San Diego, the weather is going to be awesome 330 days a year, not 50 days a year. And if you’re a foodie, I know people tout Austin. It’s not Socal. The 20,000 square miles of California from San Bernardino to the coast to the Mexican border have a staggering variety of great ethnic food. The other I day I had sisig, a Filipino pork dish I didn’t know about until last year, and my life felt more complete. Move over, bacon.

A Texas city that seems modeled on … Irvine!

So any kind of CA vs. TX comparison that skips past the talking points is to be welcomed. Now Joe Mathews has just such a piece in which he writes about his road trip to Texas and how dazzled he was not by the state in general but by a suburb of Dallas that sounds like it was modeled on … Irvine!

Here’s Joe, relating his experience with the company-relocation recruiters of Frisco, Texas:

“What they talked about most was children — and their education.

“They told the story well. Frisco has one of the fastest growing school districts in the country, adding thousands of students every year. Today, nearly a third of residents are kids, and with good reason.

“Texas is full of giant high schools that produce huge football teams and bands. But Frisco, at considerable cost, has chosen to limit its high schools to no more than 2,100 students. The smaller school approach reflects a philosophy that every child in town should be ‘known by name and need.’ This strategy had worked. In a 2013 Dallas Morning News list of the best neighborhoods for public schools in the north Texas region, eight of the top 10 neighborhoods were in the Frisco school district.

“My recruiters emphasized the lengths to which Friscoans will go to support their schools. Voters just approved a $775 million school construction bond (a comparably sized bond in the Los Angeles Unified School District would be more than $20 billion). Despite public criticism of the bond as too big and risky, the measure passed with nearly 80 percent of the vote.

“… such family-centered investment didn’t stop with schools. Frisco has more than 40 park sites and is in the process of turning some of its most valuable land into a 380-acre centerpiece, Grand Park. There are all kinds of businesses and housing development — from gated communities to urban apartments. The town has so many athletics facilities for its people that I lost count.”

Actual reporting, not just blow-harding

Please read Joe’s entire piece here. It’s nice to see real reporting on the opinion pages.

Now maybe Dan Morain can fly to Germany and give a firsthand report on how a government’s overcommitment to green energy has gone haywire.

OK, OK — I won’t get my hopes up.

Nexis shows no L.A. Times’ editorials on the topic for more than two years. The last one was the instantly infamous editorial from November 2011 — infamous for its juvenile take on a big issue:

This weekend’s column makes it clear that the LAT’s George Skelton is about to jump off the bandwagon. Skelton gets to the key question: Where’s the money to finish the initial 300-mile segment? Every other obstacle is at least possibly finessable, but not a huge cash shortage when there’s no good option to find the funding:

“It’s astonishing that a seasoned governor who fancies himself a prudent spender refuses to recognize the need to secure financing before embarking on the largest public works project in California history. …

“Brown equates critics of the bullet train with initial opponents of the transcontinental railroad, the Panama Canal, the Golden Gate Bridge, the interstate highway system and the State Water Project, among other ambitious endeavors. But that’s distorting history. Those projects were paid for by dedicated revenue streams — fuel taxes, water fees, bridge tolls — or the federal government.

“If European and Asian countries can build high-speed rail lines, the governor asserts, there’s no reason California can’t. But they’re countries. We’re a state. No state has ever created a bullet train. And unlike Washington, Sacramento can’t print money.”

Confident prediction: Morain to remain in tank for bullet train

But what will the other big wheel in the Sacramento pundit scene do, especially now that he’s more powerful than ever? I refer to Bee opinion columnist and now newly enthroned editorial page editor Dan Morain.

I say no way does he stop colluding with rail authority chair Dan Richard to spread the Kool-Aid that minimizes the project’s giant flaws and personally attacks critics. The Bee just had an astonishingly dishonest editorial on the bullet train’s court setbacks that didn’t even mention the financing nightmare cited by Skelton. And then there’s this specific insight into Morain’s thinking and values: In the middle of August, there were two provocative new stories out about the project.

The first was huge and continues to shape a new reality. It was Judge Michael Kenny’s initial ruling that the rail authority didn’t have a firm, adequate financing plan or sufficient environmental reviews for the first 300 miles of the project, as specified in state law. This angle is meaty and substantive.

The second was an insider’s story about Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Turlock, and how his attempt to create an obstacle to the project with federal regulators seemed about to backfire on him because it might let the state declare that its compliance with federal enviro rules meant it didn’t have to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act.

Morain wrote a lengthy column about the second angle that mentioned the first development in passing. This angle is juicy, to be sure, but the way Morain covered it amounted to amplification for the sneering Jerry Brown narrative that bullet-train opponents are both dumb and bad people.

Rep. Denham appears to get last laugh

As for Denham, he may have gotten the last laugh. The federal regulators he wanted to get involved — the Surface Transportation Board — last week refused the state’s request for quick approvals of the rail project’s first link, and the board’s vice president said the bullet train’s financial fitness must also be thoroughly evaluated.

If Morain thought Denham’s maneuvering was more worthy of comment than a judge’s actual project-blocking ruling, he’s plainly on Dan Richard’s and Jerry Brown’s speed dial.

But at least Skelton is no longer part of the disinformation campaign.

One statistic, from the Census Bureau, shows that once the cost of living is included, California has the highest poverty rate in the U.S., with nearly one in four residents stuggling from paycheck to paycheck — if they even have a job.

The second stat, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows that about 19 percent of Californians who want to work full time can’t find such jobs. Only Nevada has a worse rate.

One or both of these numbers were cited specifically or alluded to in Cal Watchdog stories or stories written by Cal Watchdog contributors or alums repeatedly throughout 2013.

Here’s one from Katy Grimes back in March. Here’s another from Katy in June. Here’s one from me a couple of months back.

CA’s mass poverty, underemployment finally judged to be news

So guess who’s decided to start pointing out that the allegedly Golden State has the nation’s highest level of poverty and nearly a fifth of its workers unemployed or underemployed?

Why, it’s the Sacramento Bee’s Dan Walters — as mainstream as it gets. Over the weekend, his column noted that California has “the nation’s highest level of poverty and nearly a fifth of its workers unemployed or underemployed.”

This came after a Walters’ column three weeks ago that had this observation:

“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.”

Welcome to the bandwagon, Dan.

The other Kool-Aid dispensers probably won’t come around

Now it’s time to wait for George Skelton, Dan Morain and the other dispensers of the Sacramento political-media establishment’s conventional wisdom to stop selling the Kool-Aid about the Golden State’s economic rebound.

But don’t hold your breath. Skelton, remember, is the guy who famously declared he didn’t know anyone who didn’t think the governor should break his promise and just raise taxes.

That remains the second-most telling opinion piece ever about the Sacramento media.

The first will never be topped. It was the childish tantrum of a Sacramento Bee editorial than ran after voters rejected higher taxes in the May 2009 special election. Its unforgettable opening:

“Good morning, California voters. Do you feel better, now that you’ve gotten that out of your system?

“You wanted to show the state’s politicians just how mad you are at them. And you did. Boy, did you ever.

“Proposition 1A with its taxes and its spending limit? Too much of one and not enough of the other, you said (or was it the other way around), and voted it down. Never mind that the taxes go into effect anyway. You showed ’em.”

This contempt for Californians is unlike anything I have seen from any newspaper. Normally it’s better hidden by the Skeltons and Morains of the world. They never notice the gap between dominant Dems’ noble rhetoric and what Dems use their power to do. And when voters figure it out, they react with vicious condescension.

Way to go, guys — good luck with the MSNBC interviews! You’ll fit right in.

As a practical matter, that means the state needs to have $31 billion in solid funding for the project’s 300-mile initial operating segment. State law requires the segment to have firm financing in place before construction begins to make sure what’s built is operationally viable if future funding dries up.

Given what has been spent so far and the commitments the rail authority has already made with its $13 billion in state and federal funding for the project, the state has at most $6 billion on hand. Where is the other money coming from?

The state has no idea and no good options.

In the sequester era, federal funding for discretionary domestic spending is dwindling for far bigger priorities than a California-only pork project. Also, not just House Republicans but Senate Budget Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., opposes more California-only rail funding.

No private investors are forthcoming either because state law forbids operating subsidies, which rules out the revenue guarantees that investors demand as a condition of investment. (If those guarantees aren’t met, investors want taxpayer subsidies.)

Ho-hum: This too shall pass; move along, nothing to see here

That this $25 billion shortfall is daunting isn’t just my conclusion. It was also cited in the L.A. Times’ coverage of the ruling.

“The state rail agency created a funding plan, but it was an estimated $25 billion short of the amount needed to complete a first working section of the line.

“Kenny ruled that the state must rescind the plan and create a new one, a difficult task because the state High-Speed Rail Authority hasn’t identified sources of additional revenue to allocate to the project.”

So how did the Sacramento Bee editorial page deal with this crucial aspect of Judge Kenny’s bombshell ruling? By never mentioning the size of the funding shortfall and by implying it won’t be difficult for the state to deal with the unspecified shortfall. The Bee editorial says Kenny’s decisions merely …

“…will delay the issuance of voter-approved Proposition 1A bonds by months.

“Work funded with the federal grants will continue on the first 29-mile stretch of construction from northeast Madera to the south edge of Fresno. Jeff Morales, chief executive officer of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, has made it clear the project will move forward.

“The judge ruled in one case that the CSHRA has to ‘rescind its approval’ of the 2011 funding plan. [Rail authority CEO Jeff] Morales expects to have a new draft in the next few weeks that will identify the funding sources for the high-speed rail backbone in the Central Valley, connecting with BNSF tracks at each end – not just the first 29 miles.”

But where is the $25 billion coming from, Sac Bee editorial board? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

A reminder of history that’s more like a reminder of doom

Hilariously enough, the Bee editorial also makes an observation that is supposed to be reassuring for supporters of the project but is actually another reminder of why it is doomed:

“We all need to remember that no mega-projects are funded all at once. Morales points out that the last big highway project in California – the 210 in the Los Angeles area – was planned in the 1940s, commissioned in the 1950s and built in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The last segment opened in 2007.”

But this is not a normal “mega-project.” Under state law, the first 300 miles of the project must have solid funding established before construction can proceed. So it has to be essentially funded “all at once” — not piecemeal, like the 210. Does the Bee editorial page read the Bee front page?

Here’s still more evidence of the Bee’s obliviousness: Kenny first ruled the business plan was illegal on Aug. 16. The rail authority had nearly three months to come up with a legal business plan before the “remedies” hearing was held earlier this month. It couldn’t do so. Instead, the state was left to argue that it could still spend federal funds for now on moving the project forward.

But now the Bee would have us believe that the project will be back on track within “months” because suddenly Morales will be able to pinpoint the $25 billion he couldn’t from Aug. 16 to Nov. 8.

What in the world is that assumption based on? Does the Sac Bee editorial board have hallucinogens in its water cooler? The first time I read this editorial from start to finish, I was kind of stunned at its omissions. The second time I read it, I actually laughed out loud three times. Thanks for the good times, Bee board!

Now back to that $25 billion shortfall: Once again, Bee opiners, where is it coming from?

Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

This showed yet again Morain’s eagerness to replace the L.A. Times’ George Skelton, who is likely to retire in coming years, as the mouthpiece/stenographer for the Sacramento media/political establishment. This establishment’s goal: to advance the narrative that the biggest problems with state government have to do with the minority party in Sacramento, which has no power but which nonetheless must be blamed for everything, or at least trashed periodically as hypocritical/unconstructive so as to keep attention away from bigger stories.

Now comes along another egregious example that precisely parallels last week’s. Its implicit premise is that if an individual Republican lawmaker makes a mistake or at least a dubious decision, that somehow undermines his and other conservatives’ critique of generous public employee pensions.

“If McClintock were to quit Congress today – trust me; he won’t – his annual state pension would be $77,472, eight times more than what he implied it would be. He also would receive yearly cost-of-living increases, plus an additional pension from Congress, where his pay now is $174,000 a year.”

Why does Morain think McClintock’s alleged hypocrisy is a bigger story than, say, the insane lies told by CalPERS to prop up the pension status quo?

Because he covets George Skelton’s seat so badly. Because he likes the attaboys he gets from the Sacramento establishment when he targets establishment critics.

And, really, what is his point?

If McClintock is shown to be a hypocrite, does that hurt in any way the broad conservative critique of pensions that are dictated  by political influence and not employee retention needs or anything else?

Of course not. But Morain isn’t interested in that big picture. Just in pleasing his political and media pals.

He might as well be Steve Maviglio. Talking points! Three for a dollar! Get ’em here!

But for most of the years when the list has come out, the main narrative in Sacramento hasn’t been the impediment to good governance presented by powerful unions. It has been the difficulty of raising taxes, even though the state’s taxes in many cases are among the highest in the nation. The L.A. Times even once had as the lead story in its entire newspaper an analysis piece by Evan Halper making this point — without even alluding to the headaches caused by union power.

So on the one hand, John Howard and the Capitol press corps know where the real power lies. But on the other hand, for years they’ve accepted the union theory that the biggest problem facing the Golden State is the two-thirds threshold to the Legislature’s raising taxes — not the trillion different ways that having teachers and other public employees control Sacramento is bad for budgets, bad for government performance and bad for prospects for reform.

Back to this year’s list, released this week. It’s also extraordinarily telling in how John Howard presents what is apparently the conventional wisdom about George Skelton of the Los Angeles Times.

“We’ve thought that the best newspaper columnists are solid wordsmiths and aren’t predictable, repetitive or doctrinaire, and the L.A. Times’ George Skelton passes the test.”

What? What?? WHAT???

Skelton just hasn’t encountered anyone who’s against higher taxes

As an example of Skelton’s unpredictability, Howard does come up with a good one — Skelton noting the dishonesty and spin of the governor’s and the attorney general’s refusal to defend Proposition 8.

But that’s not the normal Skelton. The normal Skelton frequently verges on self-parody with the quasi-religious way he reflexively offers up Democratic conventional wisdom on the big issues of the day. Can you ever remember him writing that hey, it’s crazy how hostile California is to business? Or, hey, why do the teachers unions get to tell Tom Torlakson how to be superintendent of public education? Or, hey, why does Torlakson listen?

Or course not.

The example of Skelton servility/conformity that will never be topped came on Dec. 16, 2011. I wrote about it at the time for calwhine.com.

“In fall 1972, legendary New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael expressed amazement after reading that Richard Nixon was a heavy favorite for re-election. Why? Because she didn’t know anyone in her Manhattan circles who was voting for the president. In his Monday column, the L.A. Times’ George Skelton exposed his Kael-style bubble for all the world to see, and in so doing confirmed what I’ve been writing for years: Sacramento’s Democrats and the Sacramento media establishment generally believe the exact same things. So much for any hope we’ll get honest, neutral coverage of state government.

“Skelton confirmed this sad state of affairs in a column that ripped Jerry Brown for saying in 2010 while running for gov that he wouldn’t back ‘new taxes unless the people vote for them.’

“This was an unfortunate promise Brown made when running for governor in a too-clever-by-half effort to undercut opponent Meg Whitman’s false characterization of him as a liberal tax and spender. …

“It’s hard to find anyone around the Capitol outside the governor’s office who doesn’t think the promise was wrongheaded.”

“LOL! A little more than one-third of all state legislators and their aides firmly support the idea that Californians be given a de facto veto over higher taxes. These people are called ‘Republicans.’ In Skelton’s world, they either don’t exist, or they agree with him on the need for higher taxes but just won’t say so.

“But what’s even more groan-worthy about this is that it ignores the sentiment of millions of California voters, not just Republican officials. In May 2009, exit polls showed Democrats, Republicans and independents alike rejected higher taxes proposed in a special election. Why? Because they know that California has among the nation’s highest income, sales and gas taxes, and the highest business taxes in the West, and they think the state government should be able to function on the revenue from these sky-high taxes.”

The allegedly great columnist who touts the lazy union narrative

If George Skelton is a very good columnist, as Howard asserts, how could he write such tunnel-vision drivel?

Because Skelton is the voice of a Sacramento media-political establishment that has long parroted the lazy, union-promoted narrative that Proposition 13/anti-tax sentiment is the devil in California — not public employee unions, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Skelton may retire any day now. He’s been at it a long time. But the Sacramento establishment needn’t worry. As I wrote earlier this week, the Sac Bee’s Dan Morain is spoiling to take Skelton’s place as establishment stenographer. The Skelton tradition will carry on, for worse and worse.

And what does Sac Bee columnist Dan Morain think is news? What he sees as the backfiring of a petty, hypocritical attempt by Republican Congressman Jeff Denham to block high-speed rail by trying to make it subject to federal oversight:

“By sending the letter that led to the Surface Transportation Board’s involvement, Denham, who didn’t respond to my requests for an interview, managed to undermine his allies – or at least the enemies of his enemies – in the fight against the rail project.

“San Francisco Peninsula cities including Atherton and Palo Alto invoked the California Environmental Quality Act when they sued to block the train from running through their fancy towns. Now, the cities’ lawyers must convince the appellate court that the state law still applies.”

Apologist/attack dog for the Sacramento establishment

But does Morain put Denham’s by-any-means-necessary effort to block the bullet train in context? That going to extremes is justified when you are trying to block a boondoggle that was sold with lies in 2008, starting with the ballot language illegally written by the Legislature’s Democratic leaders?

Nah. You lecture  the Republican for hypocrisy.

And you only giving passing mention to the fact the state government has been kneecapped by a Sacramento judge for breaking the law on the same project.

It appears Dan Morain is positioning himself to succeed George Skelton as all-purpose apologist, attack dog and stenographer for the Sacramento political-media establishment.

Thank God for Dan Borenstein. Here’s the opening part of his sharp editorial for the Bay Area News Group:

Ignoring the week’s real news

“Finally, a judge officially recognizes what has been obvious for years: The bullet train empress has no clothes — or, in this case, money.

“Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny’s 16-page ruling issued Friday exposes the fraud perpetuated by the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

“Voters set restrictions in 2008 when they supported linking major metropolitan areas of the state: Money must be secured and environmental reviews completed before the authority authorizes expenditures.

“Kenny concludes it failed to clear either hurdle. The authority ‘abused its discretion by approving a funding plan that did not comply with the requirements of the law.’

“For years now, Gov. Jerry Brown and his puppet leading the authority board, Dan Richard, have been perpetrating a bait-and-switch on Californians.”

Earth to Dan Morain: Isn’t this, yunno, news? Isn’t this the big development on the bullet-train front?

Duh. Of course it is. But Morain will get more attaboys from his media and political buddies for going after alleged GOP hypocrisy. If his goal is to be George Skelton Jr., he’s well on his way.

By Chris Reed

As I noted in a CalWatchdog post last week, the California media are covering the state government’s aggressive attempts to lead the nation in the early implemenation of Obamacare without bringing up its immense fundamental problems.

“Beginning next Jan. 1, most companies with at least 50 full-time employees have to offer health insurance. But if they don’t, the fine is a pittance -– $2,000 per employee per year –- compared with the cost of providing health insurance. This creates a gigantic incentive for businesses to drop health coverage and push their employees toward getting insurance though government-run exchanges set up by Obamacare. If a struggling company could swiftly become a prosperous one by offloading 70 percent or more of the cost of providing health coverage, many thousands are going to do it. Some might face shareholder suits if they don’t.

“Also beginning next January, individuals without employer-provided health insurance will face fines under an income-based formula that mandates a penalty of less than $1,000 for those making under $40,000 a year. That $40,000 is significantly higher than the median household income for adults younger than 35, a subset that’s much healthier than older adults. All adults will have an incentive to only buy health insurance when they get sick; under Obamacare, they can no longer be rejected for pre-existing conditions. But these young, healthy adults will have a gigantic incentive.”

Now the fact that this law is the worst piece of legislation since the Indiana legislature voted unanimously for a bill to change the numerical value of pi is beginning to sink in with a Democratic interest group that was one of its hugest supporters: labor unions. This is karma on many fronts, and vindication for the many who said the law was larded with regulations that would have unanticipated negative implications.

It will ‘make union workers less competitive’

This is from the Wall Street Journal:

“Union leaders say many of the law’s requirements will drive up the costs for their health-care plans and make unionized workers less competitive. Among other things, the law eliminates the caps on medical benefits and prescription drugs used as cost-containment measures in many health-care plans. It also allows children to stay on their parents’ plans until they turn 26.

“To offset that, the nation’s largest labor groups want their lower-paid members to be able to get federal insurance subsidies while remaining on their plans. In the law, these subsidies were designed only for low-income workers without employer coverage as a way to help them buy private insurance. …

“Contacted for this article, Obama administration officials said the issue is subject to regulations still being written … .

“Top officers at the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the AFL-CIO and other large labor groups plan to keep pressing the Obama administration to expand the federal subsidies to these jointly run plans, warning that unionized employers may otherwise drop coverage. A handful of unions say they already have examined whether it makes sense to shift workers off their current plans and onto private coverage subsidized by the government. But dropping insurance altogether would undermine a central point of joining a union, labor leaders say. …

“The Teamsters’ Mr. Hall said his union has no plans to eliminate workers’ insurance. Instead, he worries employers will have an incentive to drop coverage in collective bargaining if they can’t tap the subsidies.”

Some of the policies that unions object to may actually be defensible for forcing an acknowledgment of how the heavy cost of health care escapes compensation taxation, which encourages higher spending on health care. But the larger gripe of unions, the idea that they had no idea how sweeping this would be and how it would rock their world, is hilarious in context. Obamacare’s critics weren’t just ideologues. They were serious policy people. And on nearly every front, their warnings are being validated. But supporters aren’t being held to account for their willing blindness.

When will the ideologues who pretend to be neutral Sacramento journalists point this out?

The over-under is May 1, 2018.

When George Skelton sets the agenda, the real world is ignored.