The “failure” seems to be mostly a homeless problem. The question is if progressive policies have caused the problem and if progressive policies have failed to fix the problem. Maybe the policies haven’t been progressive enough.
Because homeless live in big cities and pretty much all big cities have Democratic leadership, since that is who the voters want. And in fact there really are no truly progressive big city governments- SF comes close, but the mayor is not and only 1/3 the supervisors are.
The reason why we have failed to fix the homeless problems is two fold.
1, There isnt one Homeless problem, as there are several types of homeless. Most are not living on the streets in shelters, they couch surf, or live in the cars, or something. Some have jobs but cant afford “First and last and deposit”. Some of these were one paycheck away from being homeless- then were laid off. We solve them but granting them that “last months rent and deposit” or finding them a job. Maybe even giving them a home.
Next are those with severe drug or mental illness issues. Giving them a home doesnt fix those problems. Giving up on the useless “War on Drugs” and better mental health programs is what is needed.
Finally there are a few that prefer that lifestyle. How do we fix what aint broken?
- Budget. Voters scream about taxes, and it will cost a lot of $$ to fix those issues.
I see what you did there.
Maybe it’s the budget surpluses. A solid red state runs deficit budgets. It’s a core conservative value.
By the way, does the drastic increase in leprosy cases in Florida prove the failure of anti-woke policies?
Historically, Florida has not been known as a leprosy hotspot. But the data surrounding this outbreak features a variety of patients who’ve come down with leprosy without leaving the state of Florida.
This suggests that the illness is now endemic in the state.
Don’t forget malaria in Florida and Texas!
Who could have predicted that slashing health services and education could lead to something like this?
Also, outbreak of syphilis in Houston proves the failure of conservatism.
TL;DR, so sorry if this has already been addressed, but one huge thing is that often people are homeless because of mental illness and/or chemical addiction and/or maladaptive behavior. The people who cannot or will not do what’s necessary to maintain functionality in our society. Homelessness is not simply a matter of poverty. My personal experience with this was when my elderly mother was in low-income housing. “Low income” meant not just retirees on Social Security, but also mentally disabled people and people with chronic alcoholism or drug abuse problems. One size fits all does not work as a solution to housing problems.
Right. This is just my subjective impression, but it seems that recently progressives seem to be blaming the entirety of the problem of homelessness on housing prices. Just build more and cheaper housing, and the problem will go away. I get why that seems to be the focus, because addressing those other problems means having to do something that goes against one or another progressive principle. How do we approach someone with drug abuse and mental health problems? Incarceration for breaking drug laws is out of the question. What about mental health treatment? Short term treatment of a few days in an acute inpatient psych hospital doesn’t work. Long term psychiatric care might work, but progressivism holds that we shouldn’t bring back asylums. What about outpatient treatment? The problem there is some people won’t be compliant with their medications and / or with avoiding street drugs, and we can’t force people to take meds that they don’t want to take because it violates their rights. And so we’re left with what we currently have, homelessness for those who can’t manage due to mental health and substance abuse problems.
For what it’s worth, I think bringing back facilities that provide long term psychiatric care is the way to go, but that’s never going to happen.
This is similar and related to the problem of homeless encampments. In theory homeless encampments are people just trying to do the best that they can for themselves under difficult conditions. Yet such encampments, at least as far back as the Great Depression “hobo jungles” and to the present day, seem to inevitably devolve into fetid pits of crime, violence and squalor. When they become intolerable to the society surrounding them they are forcibly broken up by the police. The enduring problem of “slums” is a not-quite-as-bad example of the same principle.
A big reason for the recent boom in homelessness is from the disappearance of cheap housing in the past decade or so. Pre-2000 or so, it was relatively easy to find cheap housing that anyone with a job could afford on their own or with a roommate or two. That is not really the case any more. That cheap housing is gone and now everything is $1000+/mo. The people who had salaries on the low end had the housing rug pulled out from under them and they end up on the street. That often has cascading issues which causes the person to lose their job and turn to drugs/alcohol as a way to deal with the stress. Getting back into traditional housing gets to be almost impossible. Certainly mental health is a big reason for people to be homeless, but the recent disappearance of cheap housing has added another category of people to the chronically homeless.
Cities can’t really cause the cost of housing to go down, but what they can do is create very cheap housing options, such as converting old motels to housing, putting up trailers in unused city property, etc. It doesn’t seem feasible to entice builders to build cheap apartments. The cost of construction is so high that the “cheap apartments” are still pretty expensive.
In a city where homelessness allowed, if a person loses their ability to pay for housing, they may see living in a public place as a feasible option. They get to stay in the vibrant city with their friends and family. But if the city is harsh to the homeless, the person may seek out other options that are less desirable. For instance, instead of living on the street in SF, they get a job at a truckstop in the middle of nowhere and live in a trailer behind it that they can afford to rent with their income. If a city has has no major penalty for living on the street, it’s certainly understandable why someone would choose to be homeless in a place like SF rather than living in a trailer in the middle of nowhere.
Note that while Houston is hardly a hotbed of progressivism, it is overall liberal compared to the state government and its last few mayors were Democrats (including current mayor Sylvester Turner who was a Democratic member of the House for nearly 3 decades).
That will solve the biggest homeless issue, but not, as you said the homeless that are mentally ill or drug addicted.
I agree- on both counts. Ronnie Reagan has a lot of answer for in CA.
OP held up Dallas as a “good” example and it’s also not a red city so Houston seems to fit their idea of not being progressive. I know conservative isn’t the exact opposite of progressive, but close enough for this conversation.
I don’t think there is any “major” city in the US that would be considered conservative. I did a search for “major conservative” cities in the US and they are all relatively small. Jackson, MS is probably the largest I could find and I doubt that city would show successes based on conservatism since it seems to have issues with crime, homelessness, and I’m not sure anyone can drink water out of their tap (maybe they fixed that crisis?).
It still helps to grow the amount of available housing targeted at the median income or higher, especially in markets with a great deal of job growth. When new workers come into a housing market with higher incomes than the median, if housing hasn’t kept up with job growth there tends to be a “crowding out” effect where landlords will raise rents on existing units, and the new workers will outbid existing tenants, and so on down the line until tenants at the lowest end are squeezed out and become homeless, whether “on the street” or doubling up, living with family or friends. Landlords make out like bandits in this scenario, of course - it would be nice if localities could tax such windfalls to help subsidize lower income housing.
When higher-end housing starts coming on the market, it alleviates the crowding out effect. The effect very slowly starts to make itself felt on the lower end, so the effect is not as immediate as the construction of low-end housing via subsidies, but it does exist.
I don’t know why we have a homeless problem in Portland. I found a lovely little studio for rent, $800, $300 application fee…it measures 10x10, and you have to share the bathroom.
Yeah, um, about that: where? Have you ever seen an income tax that is genuinely progressive? I sure have not. And, if a progressive income tax actually could be implemented, then they could just as easily accomplish the same end without one (e.g., a non-flat sales tax plus taxes on assets and instrument trading and other means of revenue generation).
Define ‘genuinely’ please. American tax policy is progressive and has been forever. It is not progressive enough since the Reagan era, but the poor pay little or no Federal income tax, and in fact certain groups receive money back from the government on taxes not paid (refundable tax credits). You can argue (and I would!) federal tax policy should be more progressive, but it targets high income people more than low income people, which is the definition of “progressive”. If I have an argument with that, it’s that higher earners don’t pay enough, but they certainly pay more than low earners. Progressive.
You two (ETA: now three, with squeegee’s response) are confusing me by the ambiguity of your use of “progressive” in this context. Yes, the US does have a system where income taxes are “progressive”, in the technical definition of that term meaning that marginal tax rates increase at higher income levels.
That is, US taxpayers pay a tax rate of 10% on the first $11,000 of their income, 12% on the next approximately $34K of it, 22% on the next $50K, and so on, all the way up to 37% on any income over about $578K.
That’s what “progressive taxation” technically means: the more income you have, the higher your total tax burden as a percentage of your total income.
The US tax system of course is not very strongly progressive, given that the top marginal rate is currently only 37%. And of course it can be debated to what extent the US tax system qualifies as a genuinely progressive policy, in the ideological sense of “progressive”.
But I can’t quite tell when [ETA: either any] of you is using “progressive” in the ideological sense versus in the more narrowly defined technical tax sense, so clarification appreciated thx.
I think I limited my argument to US federal taxes re “progressive” and I agree with your summary. Federal US taxes are progressive. Progressive enough? No IMO but whatever.
@eschereal’s comment that there’s no progressive taxation is risible.