Progressive politics suggests an energetic and capable government. Yet governance in California has been anything but when it comes to housing and K-12 education.
In his trenchant New York Times piece this week, Ezra Klein challenges blue states to look in the mirror:
"We need to build more homes, trains, clean energy, research centers, and disease surveillance. And we need to do it faster and cheaper. At the national level, much can be blamed on Republican obstruction and the filibuster. But that’s not always true in New York or California or Oregon. It is too slow and too costly to build even where Republicans are weak — perhaps especially where they are weak."
In California, we can’t build the housing we need. We can’t get our kids out of the bottom quartile of academic performers nationwide. And we seek new state revenues without understanding whether our dollars are actually doing anything helpful.
The solution is what Klein calls “difficult, coalition-splitting work”:
"It pits Democratic leaders against their own allies, against organizations and institutions they’ve admired or joined, against processes whose justifications they’ve long ago accepted and laws they consider jewels of their past."
At the 21st Century Alliance, we are growing a coalition that solves problems – one that is equal to the challenges of today’s California. We hope you’ll join us in that effort.
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