“We can’t arrest our way out of this. We can’t shelter our way out of this. We have to house our way out of this,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said last year while campaigning for a measure to spend $1.2 billion in taxpayer money over ten years on housing for his city’s homeless population.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who backed a $355 million county sales tax initiative to provide services to the homeless in the county, calls it “the height of contradiction” that homelessness is growing in a prosperous state.

The results? “The stunning increase in homelessness announced in Los Angeles this week — up 16% over last year citywide,” reports CNN, “was an almost incomprehensible conundrum given the nation’s booming economy and the hundreds of millions of dollars that city, county and state officials have directed toward the problem.”

There’s nothing “stunning” or “incomprehensible” about it.

Eric Garcetti, Mark Ridley-Thomas, meet Ronald Reagan: “If you want more of something, subsidize it.”

Los Angeles is already an inherently attractive destination for the homeless for several reasons ranging from climate (homelessness in, say, the midwest can mean freezing to death if you can’t find a shelter bed) to jobs (large metro with lots of employers) to transportation (mass transit for those without cars) to an already larger concentration than rural areas of both private charities and government services aimed at their problems.

What did Ridley-Thomas and Garcetti EXPECT to happen when they announced their plans to stack hundreds of millions of dollars in new government assistance on top of those inherent attractions?

If I was homeless in the western United States, I’d make a beeline for LA. You probably would too.

Garcetti is correct that housing is key to reducing homelessness. But  “free” or subsidized housing attracts people who want to live in it faster than it can be built.

If Garcetti and Ridley-Thomas want to address homelessness with housing, they should get to work reducing tax and regulatory burdens — everything from zoning regulations to permit requirements to rent control ordinances  —  that make it more expensive, difficult, and time-consuming, and less profitable, to build new housing in Los Angeles than it should be.

Unfortunately, however good their intentions, politicians hate giving up any amount of power and control over any activity. LA’s politicians will probably just continue pouring gasoline on the fire and wondering why it gets hotter instead of burning out.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Los Angeles: Homelessness Meets Economics 101,” by Thomas L. Knapp, River Cities’ Reader (Iowa), 06/10/19
• “Los Angeles: Homelessness Meets Economics 101,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 06/10/19
• “Los Angeles: Homelessness Meets Economics 101,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 06/10/19
• “On homelessness, Los Angeles meets Economics 101,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Los Angeles, California Daily News, 06/10/19
• “On homelessness, Los Angeles meets Economics 101,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Orange County, California Register, 06/10/19
• “On homelessness, Los Angeles meets Economics 101,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Riverside, California Press-Enterprise, 06/10/19
• “On homelessness, Los Angeles meets Economics 101,” by Thomas L. Knapp, San Gabriel Valley, California Tribune, 06/10/19
• “On homelessness, Los Angeles meets Economics 101,” by Thomas L. Knapp, San Bernardino, California Sun, 06/10/19
• “On homelessness, Los Angeles meets Economics 101,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Whittier, California Daily News, 06/10/19
• “On homelessness, Los Angeles meets Economics 101,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Redondo Beach, California Daily Breeze, 06/10/19
• “Los Angeles: Homelessness meets Economics 101,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Montgomery, West Virginia Herald, 06/11/19
• “Los Angeles Homelessness and Econ 101,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Florence, Alabama Courier Journal [web and print], 06/25/19
• “Los Angeles: Homelessness Meets Economics 101,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Carroll County, Maryland Standard, 07/07/19

Last year, Florida attorney and philanthropist Hugh Culverhouse, Jr. donated $26.5 million to the University of Alabama. The university, grateful for its largest private contribution ever, reciprocated by naming its law school after him. Hugh and UA, sittin’ in a tree …

On June 7, the UA’s board of trustees voted to return his donation (and presumably rename the school). Love-hate relationship, I guess.

Why?  They claim it’s over an argument as to how they spend the money,  but he says they’re lying and the reason he offers is more a lot more believable given the timing.

His discussions with the school over the uses his donation are put to are ongoing. But last week, he said something they didn’t like. Specifically, he publicly urged students to boycott the school in protest of Alabama’s new abortion law.

Agree with him or not — on abortion, on the specific law, or on how students should respond to that law — Hugh Culverhouse, Jr. is a private citizen with a right to say anything he pleases.

Agree with the board of trustees or not on what Hugh Culverhouse, Jr. should say, the University of Alabama is a “public” institution that expects taxpayers nationwide to pick up a substantial portion of its operating costs.

The university’s financial report for 2017-18 notes nearly $45 million in federal grants and contracts and another $213 million in student loans funded by the US Department of Education through the Federal Direct Student Loan Program.

Check your voicemail. Any calls from the board of trustees asking whether it’s OK for them to keep taking your money while refusing Hugh Culverhouse, Jr.’s? I didn’t think so.

If you call up the university and start trying to tell them how to spend your money, or put out a press release urging students to cheer for Tennessee at the next Crimson Tide – Volunteers game, do you think they’ll send you a refund check? Feel free to try it and see what happens, but don’t hold your breath.

If the University of Alabama is so flush that it doesn’t need Hugh Culverhouse, Jr.’s money, they’re getting way too much of yours.

A federally funded university which turns down a private donation over the donor’s constitutionally protected speech should have the full amount of that donation subtracted from its federal funding for the following year.

And by the way, remember to cheer for Tennessee at the next Crimson Tide – Volunteers game.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “If the University of Alabama Doesn’t Need Hugh Culverhouse Jr’s Money, it Doesn’t Need Yours,” by Thomas L. Knapp, River Cities’ Reader, (Iowa) 06/07/19
• “If the University of Alabama Doesn’t Need Hugh Culverhouse, Jr.’s Money, it Doesn’t Need Yours,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 06/08/19
• “If the University of Alabama Doesn’t Need Hugh Culverhouse, Jr.’s Money, it Doesn’t Need Yours,” by Thomas L. Knapp, CounterPunch, 06/10/19
• “Donor refund shows need for budget cut,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Kenly, North Carolina Johnstonian News, 06/10/19
• “If the University of Alabama Doesn’t Need Hugh Culverhouse, Jr.’s Money, it Doesn’t Need Yours,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 06/14/19

 

On June 5, former vice-president Joe Biden’s presidential campaign confirmed to The Hill that Biden still supports the Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal taxpayer funds for abortions (with exceptions). His opponents instantly piled on, hoping to erase his commanding lead in the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential primary polls.

Abortion is shaping up as a key election issue to a degree we haven’t seen in decades.  Republican state legislatures are pushing increasingly draconian bans in a play to put Roe v. Wade before what they hope will be a more pro-life Supreme Court bench than in the past. Democratic states are pulling in the other direction, attempting to protect abortion choice over as wide a time frame as possible.

The center isn’t always the best place to be, especially in a party primary cycle. Nor, says my most cynical self, is Joe Biden especially well-known for clinging to principle over party. But in this case that’s exactly what he’s doing … and in this case he’s absolutely right.

“I will continue to abide by the same principle that has guided me throughout my 21 years in the Senate,”  Biden wrote to a constituent in 1994. “[T]hose of us who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for them. As you may know, I have consistently — on no fewer than 50 occasions — voted against federal funding of abortions.”

Whatever you think about abortion as such, that SHOULD be a position most of us can agree on. Even Congress has agreed on it  — 44 times! They passed the Hyde Amendment in 1976 and have renewed it every year since, regardless of whether the House and Senate were controlled by Democrats or by Republicans at any given time.

Who doesn’t agree?

The National Abortion Rights Action League, which defends “access” to abortion but re-defines “access” as meaning “everyone else pays for it.”

Planned Parenthood, which wants its half a billion dollars in annual corporate welfare from Uncle Sugar dispensed without conditions.

Most of the other 2020 Democratic presidential nomination candidates, who want endorsements from NARAL and Planned Parenthood, and the campaign contributions that they expect such endorsements to encourage.

Above, I mention that the Hyde Amendment includes exceptions. Those exceptions are for rape, incest, or danger to the mother’s life. The only procedures covered by the federal funding ban are purely elective abortions, and not even all of those.

Obviously pro-life Americans have good reasons to support the Hyde Amendment. But so do pro-choice Americans, if they’re really pro-choice.

Whether or not to have an abortion is your choice.

Whether or not the rest of us pick up the check for your choice should be our choice, not Planned Parenthood’s or NARAL’s.

Stick to your guns, Joe.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Election 2020: Joe Biden Gets One Thing Right, But it May Cost Him,” by Thomas L. Knapp, River Cities’ Reader (Iowa), 06/05/19
• “Election 2020: Biden Gets One Thing Right, But it May Cost Him,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 06/06/19
• “Biden gets one thing right, but it may cost him,” by Thomas L. Knapp,  Southgate, Michigan News-Herald, 06/08/19
• “Election 2020: Biden Gets One Thing Right, But it May Cost Him,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 06/11/19
• “Biden gets it right,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Orangeburg, South Carolina Times & Democrat, 06/11/9
• “Biden Is Right About Hyde Amendment,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Cordell, Oklahoma Beacon, 06/24/19