03/28/2024

One welfare boost for the poor, another for the rich

Carried by Sen. Holly Mitchell, a Los Angeles Democrat, SB 982 would reverse many years of stagnation, and even cuts, in family support grants under California’s version of welfare, dubbed CalWORKs.

. . . SB 982 would incrementally, over three years, increase “maximum family grants,” which are based both on poverty and the size of families, from the current 33 percent of the federally determined poverty level to 50 percent, and adjust them thereafter as costs of living increase.

. . . But just before taking up SB 982, the Senate passed a welfare bill of another kind, also carried by Mitchell.

Senate Bill 951, approved by a 37-2 vote, would continue and expand the state’s tax credit subsidies to film production, up to $330 million a year.

. . . While California’s liberal Democratic politicians often decry corporate tax loopholes, they are making a very pointed exception for this one industry, whose corporate and union leaders are dependable supporters of Democratic candidates and causes.

In fact, the film industry, despite its very high cultural profile, is an almost infinitesimal factor in the state’s $2.6 trillion economy, and not even very important in Southern California.

It is no more deserving of state subsidies than other sectors that experience changes of economic circumstance –such as the defense industry, which melted down after the Cold War ended, the agricultural industry or even the newspaper business, which has shed thousands of journalists and other employees in recent years as ad revenue declined.

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