Has there ever been a clearer example of failing upward?

The Los Angeles Times, which allegedly used to be a newspaper, has devolved finally and completely into self parody. Today, an op-ed by the reliably bonkers George Skelton starts with this knee-slapper: “Gov. Gavin Newsom’s ‘treatment not tents’ ballot measure would make only a puny dent in homelessness. But it’s still the biggest attempt ever by a California governor to address the growing problem.”

Ladies and gentlemen, we are officially through the looking glass. We are in the Upside Down.

Anyone who lived in San Francisco during Newsom’s disastrous tenure as mayor is having PTSD flashbacks at the moniker for his “new” approach to a crisis he has done as much as any single individual to create. “Treatment not tents” uncannily echoes his 2003 platform called “Care Not Cash.” The idea was as simplistic – if not simple-minded – as it sounds: City government should stop giving homeless people cash assistance, because they just spend it on drugs and alcohol that perpetuates their situation. Instead, what was needed were “wraparound services” and “permanent supportive housing.”

Sound familiar?

That was two decades ago. How’d it all work out? Well, it turns out the only people who are more reckless with money than drug-addled vagrants are government bureaucrats. Billions of dollars and tens of thousands of assaults, burglaries, arson fires, overdoses, rapes, and murders later, San Francisco is on the precipice of the Ninth Circle of Hell.

And because this is California, even as a Mt. Everest of evidence accumulated that Care Not Cash was succeeding only in establishing a yet another new permanent bureaucracy that consumes tax dollars the way Gavin consumes Chardonnay, Care Not Cash and its progeny spread like cancers throughout the state. At the same time, in typical Golden State fashion, the political class turned the rationale, such as it was, on its head. No, no, no, admonished armies of finger wagging officials, homeless people aren’t junkies and drunks who spend the people’s tax dollars on drugs and alcohol. How dare you! They are our “unhoused neighbors.”“

Well, then.

Which is it? Are homeless people a bunch of wasted reprobates who cannot even be trusted with a handout, or are they folks just like you and me who’ve fallen on hard times and therefore deserve a lifetime of care and free housing at taxpayer expense?

The answers, of course, are utterly irrelevant. Because Care Not Cash was never about solving homelessness. It was never about “compassion.” It was about expanding the permanent bureaucracy of union dues paying Democratic state, county, and city employees. And on that front it has succeeded beyond the political class’s wildest fantasies.

In just the last five years California has spent nearly $20 billion on homelessness, only to see the situation escalate statewide into a full-blown humanitarian crisis of historic proportions. Warlords in Yemen look at the streets of Frisco with awe and envy at the carnage and chaos the political class has unleashed. Meanwhile the bureaucracies are humming along just fine, employing unknown thousands of full-time staff who fully expect to keep their jobs through retirement. That means, by definition, they will never solve the crisis. After all, no one in their right mind puts themselves out of a job.

The Homeless Industrial Complex is working precisely as designed. Homelessness has increased 20% since Newsom took office. That isn’t a coincidence. Meanwhile, when he isn’t fleecing the voters he’s reneging on promised housing support for California cities. Is there any low to which he won’t sink? Then again, this is a man who slept with his best friend’s wife, accused San Francisco’s beloved cable car operators of stealing, and at the age of 45 dated a 19 year old cocktail waitress named … wait for it … Brittanie Mountz. Integrity and virtue are not among Gavin’s strong suits.

So now he comes to California voters with Proposition 1, which he calls “treatment not tents.” Never has the expression “lipstick on a pig” been more appropriate. The initiative would do nothing other than throw another $10 billion at the problem while further entrenching the bureaucracies and further enriching profiteering nonprofits. Expect Gavin to utter the phrases “game changing” and “meeting the moment” at least 1,000 times between now and Election Day.

Of course, money isn’t the issue with California’s homeless crisis. In fact, spending has been so lavish, and so uncontrolled, that cities are leaving billions on the table. A recent audit of Los Angeles homeless spending identified nearly $1.5 billion in unspent mental health funds in that city alone. And now Newsom wants the state to borrow another $6.5 billion, to be repaid with interest? One might suggest he tidy his own house before coming to the voters with more demands.

It’s madness. You have to be irredeemably corrupt or catastrophically naive to think this is ever going to work.

Newsom knows this, which may explain why his pitch has been dishonest to the point of fraudulent. In TV ads he claims Proposition 1 is all about veterans. This is the most noxious sort of bovine excrement. The proposition, which is 67 single-spaced pages, is nothing more than yet another massive cash transfer from hardworking Californians to useless government bureaucrats. It really is as simple as that. Veterans are little more than a line item, and barely one at that. The rest of the initiative is a nonsensical mishmash of arbitrary – not to mention unreliable – statistics and head-scratching assertions.

For example, on the very first page the initiative’s authors — some of whom may have even graduated high school — acknowledge the one bit of reality they have allowed to slip through their otherwise bulletproof shield against reality: Some 82% of homeless people in California experience mental health issues. Accepting the (laughably underestimated) official number of 182,000 homeless people in the state, that means at least 150,000 people are in need of mental health and/or substance abuse treatment.

However, a few short paragraphs later the authors assert that the state has a shortage of just 3,000 “community treatment beds” (whatever those are). Then, a couple of paragraphs after that, they claim, “Reforms will include bond funding that is intended to build more than 10,000 new treatment beds and supportive housing. Over 100,000 people per year with behavioral health conditions will get treatment, including those experiencing homelessness, veterans, and youth.”

So let’s see … there are 150,000 people in California in need of treatment, but the state only has a shortage of 3,000 beds, so we’ll build 10,000 beds that somehow will serve 100,000 people, from troubled youths to Vietnam veterans. And we’ll do it because “reforms.”

If anyone can square those assertions and do that math, please drop me an email.

The people behind “treatment not tents” are as unserious as the ones behind “Care Not Cash,” starting with Newsom. They created this mess over 20 years. And they expect California voters to give them yet another chance? No wonder Newsom has to lie and claim Proposition 1 is all about the veterans.

The only questions remaining for Californians to answer is how much more of this failure we will accept, and how many thousands more people, homeless and housed, have to suffer and die before we kick the Newsoms of the world to the curb. How much failure is too much? How many more ravaged neighborhoods will it take? How many deaths are too many?

Then again, it’s California. Sadly, tragically, I’m not holding my breath for the answers.

But at least I can vote no on this latest travesty. You should, too.