{"id":1344,"date":"2026-08-05T08:10:06","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T08:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1344"},"modified":"2026-08-05T08:10:06","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T08:10:06","slug":"california-needs-steve-hiltons-allegedly-zany-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1344","title":{"rendered":"California Needs Steve Hilton\u2019s Allegedly \u2018Zany Ideas\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Veteran political strategist Garry South has just\u00a0published a guest commentary<\/span>\u00a0in the\u00a0San Francisco Chronicle in which\u00a0 he asks the question, \u201cIs Steve Hilton a serious candidate?\u201d South then launches a series of attacks to make clear he doesn\u2019t think Hilton is gubernatorial material. But only a serious contender could have survived California\u2019s so-called \u201cjungle primary,\u201d where voters choose among all candidates regardless of party affiliation. In a field of 61 candidates<\/span>, Hilton came in second to Democrat Xavier Becerra. These top-two finishers will now face each other in the state\u2019s general election this November.<\/p>\n

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There\u2019s nothing unique about South attacking Hilton in a guest column. Politics is a dirty business, where tone is more potent than truth and emotion more effective than evidence. Quoting biased sources<\/span> who were critical of Hilton\u2019s proposals while active in politics in the U.K., South tags Hilton as a \u201cgadfly,\u201d a \u201cwacky thinker\u201d with \u201czany ideas.\u201d But this hatchet job on Hilton is notable for how completely it inverts reality.<\/p>\n

The irony would be hilarious if it weren\u2019t so indicative of a systemic failure for which California\u2019s entire ruling political establishment, certainly including Garry South, pretends to be in complete denial. South was campaign manager for Gray Davis\u2019s successful campaigns<\/span> for lieutenant governor in 1994, then for governor in 1998, and for reelection as governor in 2002. Which is to say that Garry South played a vital role<\/span> in realigning California from a reliably red state to the deepest blue state in America.<\/p>\n

The result is California today, a state where \u201cwacky thinkers\u201d with \u201czany ideas\u201d are given free rein, and the only beneficiaries are special interests.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the rest of us in California suffer the consequences of zany ideas gone mainstream. The list is obvious and lengthy. Every item on this list is, to put it charitably, an unforgivable lapse of judgment.<\/p>\n

When it comes to helping the homeless in California, instead of recognizing that\u00a0\u00a0suffer from mental illness, drug addiction, and alcoholism, state and local authorities treat it as a result of the housing shortage. The solution should be to round these folks up and get them into cost-effective congregate shelters where they can get help to overcome these disorders. Instead,\u00a0billions of dollars<\/span> are turned over to what has become an industry devoted to perpetuating the problem. These include \u201csafe spaces\u201d where drug addicts are provided needles and meth pipes, and \u201cpermanent supportive housing,\u201d taxpayer-funded at $800,000 per unit (or more)<\/span>, where only a small fraction of the state\u2019s\u00a0nearly 200,000 homeless<\/span>\u00a0individuals will ever get a roof over their heads.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to California\u2019s housing shortage, which is erroneously blamed for the explosion in homelessness, while actually being explicitly responsible for California having the\u00a0least affordable housing<\/span>\u00a0in the nation.\u00a0The solution<\/span> should be to scrap unreasonable environmental mandates on everything from what land can be developed to excessive building codes and streamline permitting requirements. This would enable private developers to make a profit without subsidies, while building homes that working people can afford to purchase. But that makes too much sense. Instead, the state piles more regulations onto developers, leaving only a handful of politically connected, taxpayer-subsidized mega-firms to build limited quantities of new housing, all of it crammed into California\u2019s already crowded urban areas, all of it exorbitantly priced.<\/p>\n

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Environmentalism is not just a moral masquerade for an engineered housing shortage that has excluded a generation of Californians from owning a home or paying an affordable rent. It\u2019s stopped\u00a0all<\/em> rational development in its tracks. The biggest example of this is California\u2019s obsession with \u201cnet-zero\u201d at all costs. The policies attendant to \u201cnet-zero\u201d have done nothing to alleviate the \u201cclimate crisis,\u201d if it even is a crisis. But they\u2019ve given Californians among the most expensive gasoline<\/span>,\u00a0natural gas<\/span>, and\u00a0electricity rates<\/span>\u00a0in America. The regulatory war on California\u2019s oil and gas industry has forced production offshore\u2014Californians now import\u00a075 percent of their petroleum<\/span>\u00a0and\u00a090 percent of their natural gas<\/span>. Never mind the lost jobs or the fact that California\u2019s environmental regulations, even if softened to reasonable standards, still would result in the cleanest oil extraction and refining processes on Earth. Nope. Export the jobs, export the impact. The hypocrisy is stunning.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s water. In a state where over the past 50 years the\u00a0population has doubled<\/span>, and the inflation-adjusted\u00a0value of California\u2019s farm produce has also doubled, total\u00a0\u00a0is nearly the same today as it was in 1985, and total\u00a0farm water consumption<\/span>\u00a0hasn\u2019t changed since 1967. And yet California\u2019s policymakers are determined to impose\u00a0strict rationing<\/span>\u00a0on residential water use and force nearly a million\u00a0acres of irrigated farmland<\/span> out of production. Never mind that the state\u2019s residents and farmers have done an extraordinary job conserving water; it\u2019s time to squeeze more out of everyone. The solution would be to invest in practical water supply infrastructure, a solution even Democrats understood and implemented back in the 1950s and 1960s. But not today. Restrict. Ration. Charge everyone more, and only the bureaucrats and biggest corporations prosper from this misanthropy.<\/p>\n

In California, of course, it isn\u2019t just the housing, energy, or agricultural industries where only the biggest corporate players survive, and only then with subsidies and political connections. It\u2019s\u00a0every<\/em> business. In a 2024 report published by Hilton himself in collaboration with the California Policy Center (disclaimer: I helped write this report), evidence was presented that California has the nation\u2019s highest unemployment<\/span>, lowest job growth, lowest income growth, and was\u00a0ranked by Chief Executive magazine as the\u00a0worst state in America to do business<\/span>\u00a0for the 10th year in a row.<\/p>\n

Stupid, failing policies define California. A high-speed rail system that almost nobody will ever ride, now estimated to cost over $200 billion<\/span>. A proposal to deploy floating offshore wind turbines, an\u00a0absurdly expensive<\/span>\u00a0way to generate electricity that will wreak havoc on the environment. A justice system so compromised that even though 70 percent of Californians overwhelmingly approved a\u00a0ballot initiative in 2024<\/span>\u00a0to reestablish the idea that crimes are illegal, the Democrats running the state refuse to enforce it. A system of public education that puts more classroom emphasis on leftist indoctrination than on\u00a0teaching basic skills<\/span>.<\/p>\n

In a state this determined to shortchange its citizens in favor of politically connected corporations, public sector unions, tribes, trial lawyers, environmentalist extremists, wildly profitable \u201cnonprofits,\u201d and useful leftist lunatics programmed to accept anything as long as it\u2019s done in the name of social justice or fighting the climate emergency, \u201cwacky\u201d and \u201czany\u201d are not terms appropriate to sling at the opposition. They define the status quo.<\/p>\n

Read more At Least Ten Agitators Arrested in Madison as Filthy \u2018Autonomous Zone\u2019 is Dismantled<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Veteran political strategist Garry South has just published a guest commentary in the San Francisco Chronicle in which he asks the question, \u201cIs Steve Hilton a\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-california"],"yoast_head":"\nCalifornia Needs Steve Hilton\u2019s Allegedly \u2018Zany Ideas\u2019 - Urban Economy news<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1344\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"California Needs Steve Hilton\u2019s Allegedly \u2018Zany Ideas\u2019 - 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