A Progressive California Epiphany over Soaring Electricity Rates

wsj.com

7 points·gnicholas··5 comments

Scaling all costs by income is a way to equalize effective incomes and doing so for electricity is one step in that direction. Taxing a thing creates a disincentive to do that thing, making this a great plan for equalizing incomes in California by having taxpayers generate less of it, like by relocating.

To be fair this may be less destructive than other common methods of equalizing incomes, like famine, war, revolution or pestilence.

California has a bad habit of not adjusting for CoL, which makes zero sense in the context of a state with such wide CoL disparities (they do the same thing with govt employee salaries, which are constant across the state). Someone making $100k in LA/SF is in a very different boat than someone making $100k in Sacramento, Fresno, or Ukiah. Pretending that these people are all equally well-off is imbecilic.

I'm not sure how pestilence is relevant here, but I would agree that it would be a bad alternative. I don't think even CA's legislators are stupid enough to vote in favor of pestilence, however.

> I'm not sure how pestilence is relevant here

The pandemic increased income equality. Economic downturns do that on their own, and the pandemic caused at least that. It also killed more elderly, who are wealthier on average.

I think your reply illustrates the closeness of the linkage (or lack thereof) between pestilence and income inequality.

I'm glad to see this being discussed. Based on the article, it looks like this was dropped in at the last minute, and was not subject to a robust debate. CA already has a very progressive income tax, and it's not clear that we should add progressive tiers to our utility billing.

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