Recently Kevin Price, Host of the nationally syndicated Price of Business Show, interviewed John D. O’Connor.
The recent Southern California fires have exposed Progressive policies as unserious and frivolous, ignoring fundamental needs of society. Because these policies would not be attractive if the truth were known, it is not uncommon for advocates to lie or conceal. For example, carbon dioxide’s role in a warming planet is overstated absurdly, while the massive environmental damage from EVs and windmills is ignored deliberately.
One environmental cause has been the protection of the Delta Smelt. To protect its ecosystem, over 50 percent of mountain-fed river water flowing through the San Joaquin Delta is flushed into the sea. Yet for the past forty years it has become apparent that the Delta Smelt can no longer survive, in spite of best efforts. Recently California wildlife agents released 90,000 hatchery bred smelt into the Delta. A year later virtually none could be found.
California refused to allow insurers to raise rates and thousands are without fire insurance. Controlled burn and forest-thinning programs are stymied by environmental lawsuits, meaning a delay of three to seven years simply to get a burn approved. Meanwhile budgets are diverted into everything but true fire safety, as undocumented immigrants consume resources and low income residents are the recipients of “climate change” funding, but not fire departments.
Perhaps the recent devastation would have occurred even with shrewd planning. But we can say that Progressive policies have done nothing to make California residents safer, and certainly they will doubtless cause business-killing taxation in one of the world’s most beautiful areas.