It started as a lark. I noticed that you could get on the ballot for some relatively modest fees and was joking to my friends about it. The campaign message was simple: "Anybody is better than those people, even me. They are not honest. Not at all. They don't even seem to get the basics right. Really, pick anyone off the street. It would be better."
Then I started pulling the trigger. Starting with forms, and then payments. And here I find myself.
I have hope that focus can be placed on the heartbreaking educational failures and costs we suffer as a state. Roughly 4 billion dollars is spent on profitable curricular materials alone—often based on dodgy philosophies which lead directly to vulnerable kids not being able to read. We can place pressure on administrators in universities to spend that money on actual teaching instead.
For what it's worth, community colleges already have a law requiring that half of their expenditures (in certain categories) are spent in the classroom. So progress can be made. There is precedent.
What Makes People Poor?
They don't have money.
So... send them a check!
Perhaps this is glib, but all solutions should be evaluated against that baseline. For Medi-Cal, the negotiation that the state can have with insurance companies at least arguably gives more benefit than simply sending out checks. For Section 8 housing, there are tradeoffs between the safety of recipients and the availability of housing. These programs require constant, intelligent focus and discussion if we really want to help.
In Berkeley, and much more broadly, there are so many things done in the name of various "stakeholders" without actually calculating the tradeoff or benefit. For example, in Berkeley, we recently spent 8.9 million on a clubhouse with 1,604 square feet of programmable space "for the children" in after-school and summer programs. It is literally next door to Willard Middle School, which is sitting pretty empty after school and during the summer.
There are so many examples. I can go on, but so can you. (In fact, please do. Send me yours!)
A Note on Policy and Honesty
My arguments above may appear conservative, but I am anything but. I think liberals should actually deliver, not just pretend to do so. We do deliver at times: Medi-Cal, Section 8, robust environmental laws. Let's just back out of the stupid.
Also, with apologies to the actual politicians in this race: Any candidate for public office does indeed put themselves out there in service to us. However, the dishonesty that they engage in is perhaps our fault. We like to hear what we want to hear.
Here too, there is an opportunity. When we first had the internet and the power of search, we continued to argue about who was in what movie. Eventually, we learned that such fact-based things are just a phone click away and not worth disagreeing over. But even with easy access to evidence today, we still argue more about things beyond basic facts.
A benefit of AI is that it can actually gather evidence, understand the issue, discuss tradeoffs, understand arguments against your position, and understand why people disagree with you. It should make us less certain. It should help us understand each other more. And even if we continue to disagree, it should help us care for each other more.
Also, with AI, we really should care for each other more.