Greener and Poorer | City Journal
The Biden-Harris administration has praised California s progressive elected officials as model leaders on climate and environmental issues. But what have those state leaders and their policies actually produced? A fixation on renewable energy, along with the closure of natural gas and nuclear plants, has helped drive the cost of electricity and gas in California higher than anywhere else in the continental U.S. And the lion s share of these costs is borne by low-income families. Adjusted for cost of living, California has the nation s highest poverty rate about 7.1 million people due in part to the high costs of essentials like housing, gas, and electricity.
This is largely the result of California s regressive tax policies. The state sales tax, property tax, and any user fee, be it a road toll or bus fare, hits lower-income workers harder because these levies take no account of the payer s lower earnings. A $100 fee hits the budget for a lower-tiered earner harder than it does a higher-tiered one. Consider the gas tax. One of the biggest financial shocks for consumers in recent months has been the ever-escalating cost of fueling their cars. A gas tax is a recessive excise tax that disproportionately penalizes lower- and middle-class households, since they spend a larger proportion of their annual income on gasoline than do high-income families.