by Newt Gingrich

Four months ago, the Palisades fire destroyed more than 6,800 homes in Los Angeles. Three months later, only four permits had been issued to rebuild the community. Clearly, California just isn’t working.

The radical environmentalism, wokeism, and unionized bureaucratic micromanagement that Sacramento has imposed on the whole state is distorting reality and grinding things to a halt.

I talked with Environment Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin about the fire and recovery. He was surprised at the tiny number of permit approvals. Under his aggressive, dynamic leadership, the EPA already cleared the burned-out neighborhoods for federal permits. Of course, as he noted, the federal permits require city and county permission.

This permitting logjam is happening even with a supposed one-stop local permit office and other efforts to cut through the red tape.

But this is only the latest part of the story. Years before the fire, two new reservoirs were approved to ensure there would be enough water for firefighting. They were never built. Some fire hydrants simply did not work. Further, emergency vehicles were trapped in government parking lots because they needed oil changes. They could not be used to fight the fires because the bureaucracy’s firm rules about routine maintenance overruled common sense and public safety.

And fire is a real danger in the whole state. I spoke with Laguna Beach Mayor Alex Rounaghi and Fire Chief Niko King on my Newt’s World podcast. They shared their strategy for fire prevention. Laguna Beach brought in 400 goats to eat underbrush. It was a low cost solution to clear out the vegetation that leads to hot uncontrollable fires. The California government is trying to eliminate their goat fire prevention because the goats might eat endangered plants. (You have to wonder: What do state bureaucrats think fire does to endangered plants?) The powers in Sacramento want Laguna Beach to switch to human vegetation removal, which is four times more expensive. Meanwhile, a couple hundred goats might have saved the Palisades.

But the tragedy of the Palisades fire is just one example of how California is falling apart. The combination of weird values, ossified bureaucracy, and state legislators devoted to principles and ideas that simply don’t work are slowly destroying the state.

On a totally different front, California had more than $20 billion stolen from its COVID-19 related unemployment compensation funds. Much of the theft came from California state prisoners using the state prison’s computer system. They used  identity theft and partners outside the prison to defraud taxpayers. Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert joined me on Newt’s World to discuss the fraud. The story is unbelievable. When we spoke in February 2021, the estimate was only $11.5 billion had been stolen. It has since doubled and no one really knows the upper limit. This astonishing incompetence drives up taxes on businesses to replenish the unemployment funds that have been drained by crooks. It’s a vicious cycle.

One final example of California not working is the proposed high-speed train from San Francisco to Los Angeles. It was originally proposed in 2008 for $33 billion. It was supposed to be completed by 2020. Now, a small portion has been built between small towns. The projected cost has ballooned to $128 billion – and at the current rate it will not be completed in this century. It will never reach San Francisco or Los Angeles but instead stop at small towns about 25 miles outside the cities.

While California has been squandering money on costly failures, the Japanese have had more than 60 years-experience with high-speed trains. Communist China has built more than 29,000 miles of high-speed rail.

California simply doesn’t work anymore.

Since California is our largest state, this collapse of competence and common sense is a national problem. The state represents 14 percent of the national economy.

We need a serious commitment to get back to a common sense, problem solving California that works again. It should be a national priority.

For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com. Also, subscribe to the Newt’s World podcast.

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