The "affordability" press releases were issued with regularity, and "affordability" was the buzzword in the halls of Sacramento. But in the remaining hours of the latest California legislative session, Democrats tightened the blindfold, affixed a gag, and tied "affordability" to the imaginary — and unaffordable— high-speed rail tracks.
Assemblyman David Tangipa, one of the few Republicans in the legislature, was disgusted with the Democrats' midnight spending spree after they spent the entire session pretending to care about affordability.
He said the net effect of the "midnight madness" in Sacramento was to make the "state less safe, more unaffordable, and will have a criminal-first agenda."
Democrats gave a "get out of jail free" card to "juvenile" offenders up to the age of 25 years old, Tangipa complains. For example, that means most gang members won't be required to go to jail.
It's true. In addition to making it easier for "the children" — those 25 and under — to keep from getting locked up for hurting people and breaking things, Democrats made it more difficult to uncover criminals stealing from state and federal programs. That was the point of the Stop Nick Shirley Act, passed and signed into law last week.
Who can "afford" that?
The allegedly cash-strapped state backed up the Brink's truck to the failed California high-speed rail project to offload another billion to that loser; that's in addition to the $1 billion that automatically goes into the project every year.
The legislature gave more money away for "gender reassignment surgery for children" after they made the state a sanctuary for psychologically confused trans kids. Have these people ever heard of the law of supply and demand, or naw?
Assemblyman David Tangipa posted a video on X:
🚨 Midnight Madness at the Capitol
— David Tangipa (@DavidTangipa) September 1, 2026
Today is the last day of session.
After a full year of lectures on affordability and blaming Trump, the Sacramento supermajority did nothing to fix the cost of living in California.
They made it worse.
Today’s priorities:
• More money for… pic.twitter.com/L64NCw4hp7
But that's not all. Democrats didn't make things more affordable for all Californians, which they could have done. Instead, they loaded greenbacks into their cash cannons and directed them at their favorite groups in the name of "affordability."
Spending more makes things more "affordable?" If that's so, how is California not the most "affordable" place on the planet?
For years, Democrats have fully embraced higher gas and energy prices to fight "climate change," because nothing says you're striking a blow for affordability as creating scarcity in one of the most blessed oil and gas repositories in the world.
Keep Up! West Coast, Messed Coast™– Califraudia's Protection Act for Billion-Dollar Robber Barons
Instead of declaring a tax holiday on gas prices, which would help everybody — trans kids, gangsters, and even working people — in profound ways, Democrats prefer to keep gas taxes high and pivot blame to Donald Trump and the Iran operation. It doesn't help "affordability," but it does help Democrats in November's election.
Senate Bill 254 "addressed energy system and utility cost issues," yet created another state-funded incentive program to accelerate clean energy development — the reason why gas and energy prices are so high in California. Good grief.
A previous bill, AB 130, took aim at high housing prices and missed. Instead of rolling back housing regulations, it froze the current ones in place until 2031. Nobody's saying all regulation is dumb, of course not, but this bill sure is — it locked in the level of housing regulation that has put "affordable" housing out of bounds for most.
I'll give Democrats this: Even though they didn't acknowledge it out loud, this bill was at least an admission that regulations are a chief driver of the "affordable" housing crisis. Don't worry, they'll forget next legislative session.
And then the legislature, which has done more to kill jobs than any other population of people in the history of the world, which is only a slight exaggeration, "created" jobs by throwing other people's money at "expanding workforce" and career training opportunities.
Let's go to the tote board, shall we? California schools are cratering. The state protects fraudsters who steal from Californians. Prices for housing, gas, and energy are unaffordable; nobody needs a ghost high-speed rail project; and Democrats know nothing about free markets and job creation — unless it involves friends at NGOs.
Californians can't "afford" leaders like these.
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