Criminalizing homelessness? No teacher raises? It’s all part of GOP’s bigger plan for KY | Opinion
Poverty is a complicated beast, and if it were easy to tame, societies would have done so long ago.
But here’s one thing we do know: Punishing people for being poor is not the answer.
That’s why a big chunk of the Kentucky GOP’s crime bill, House Bill 5, is frankly jaw-dropping in its Dickensian cruelties. It more or less outlaws homelessness without providing any of the the ways we know prevent the problem: Emergency shelter, recovery beds or more money for affordable housing.
It’s a stick without any carrots at all.
The House Judiciary committee passed the bill on Thursday with some slight changes, despite numerous advocates who pleaded with them not to. The Legislative Research Commission says the cost of the bill is “significant,” which means more than $1 million. At the very least.
“The fact is Kentucky is poor and Kentucky is criminalizing poverty, and we will not get better that way,” said Shamika Parrish-Wright, a Louisville City Council member and activist.
“Legislation should not be on the backs of poor people... We are not ready for HB 5 and HB 5 is not ready for Kentucky. This does not address the problems we are suffering from.”
Of course, as is more and more the case, these ideas are not original or belonging to our legislators. They came from an out-of-state conservative think tank known as the Cicero Institute, which is based on the philosophies of the tech billionaire who founded it. (Question: Why do we think billionaires are great public policy experts?)
In an excellent story, Herald-Leader reporter John Cheves explained that Cicero leaders in Austin, Texas (yes, that city roughly 1,000 miles from Lexington) are the ones who think current efforts don’t work. The only solution, they contend, is arrests.
Specifically “unlawful camping,” which includes spending the night in a car or in places not designated for camping.
(The Cicero Institute is being represented here by former staffers of Gov. Matt Bevin, so that should tell you plenty.)
This is yet another swipe at the big liberal cities of Lexington and Louisville, which conservative lawmakers seem intent on punishing, although with the homeless. The bill would require a locality’s police to arrest those sheltering in places not designated for camping.
Anyone trying to not enforce the law would be reported to the state attorney general.
Cities could not spend local or state dollars on “Housing First” initiatives, which place people in housing before connecting them with social services. (The sponsors took out federal housing in the committee substitute.)
Local officials here have used this program for years and believe they work, but why would we trust experts on the ground in Lexington and Louisville? Republicans used to be the party of local control until they very much were not.
The bill would make it easier to arrest people who can’t afford bail, which will make it harder for them to get their lives back on track. And make it more expensive for the state to pay for a growing prison population.
I understand the General Assembly believes we have suddenly become soft on crime, but this section of HB 5 is totally backward. I also understand the entire House of Representatives is up for reelection this year.
In addition, another bill is aimed at blocking source of income bans in our two largest cities, further hampering attempts to house more people.
Kentucky is currently 89,000 beds short of affordable housing units, according to the Housing and Homeless Coalition of Kentucky. Advocates asked the state for at least $200 million to start to make up this shortfall, greatly exacerbated by the Western Kentucky tornadoes and Eastern Kentucky floods. Those people are not criminals; they lost their homes through no fault of their own.
This bill makes Kentucky look backwards and inhumane.
Zero income tax
But that’s hardly an accident. House Bill 5, along with the House budget bill, the lack of funding for housing and education, and other legislation is all part of a bigger plan.
James Ziliak, director of the Center for Poverty Research at the University of Kentucky, says this perspective is rooted in history.
“We have a long history of treating the poor as criminals,” he said. “It’s a very Victorian perspective on poverty and treatment of poor — I thought we had moved beyond that, but this movement emerged with welfare reform, and it hasn’t gone away.”
Ziliak said this kind of bill is another step in winding back the welfare state, which started in the 1980s with President Ronald Reagan and continued into the 90s with Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America.
As anti-tax activist Grover Norquist famously said in 2001: “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
“This seems like a micro jab, but it’s part of their macro approach, which is to reduce the role of the state,” Ziliak said.
Telling Lexington and Louisville what to do also meets that goal. “That usurps local authority to fill a wider agenda to reduce the role of the state both in terms of spending and regulation,” he noted.
The GOP budget is another example of this.
Take education. The House budget proposal announced last week would increase the basic SEEK formula by 6 percent over two years, adding some money for transportation and giving districts the ability to give raises, if they can afford it.
It would cost much less than Gov. Beshear’s plan to bolster Kentucky teaching ranks with an 11 percent raise, and his plan to fund universal Pre-K.
Lower spending keeps the state on track to meet the GOP efforts to lower the state income tax to zero. More spending would activate triggers to slow down that process.
(And as a bonus, less support for public schools leaves them weaker, leaving the field open to privatization, which will become easier if voters approve a constitutional amendment to allow public school money to be spent on private ones.)
“The winding down of the income tax is this belief that if we do that we’ll have more economic success like Tennessee,” Ziliak said.
“But we also don’t have the urban engines that Tennessee has that help drive their economy, and it’s not clear that our tax system has been adequately transformed to accommodate a lower income tax. To lower the income tax without addressing substantial loopholes in our tax code will lead to a financial crisis in our state.”
The two House budget proposals do address issues such as juvenile justice and the need for more social workers, but ignores others such as state subsidies for child care, which allows more parents to work.
Not to mention that changes in the state income tax will disproportionately benefit wealthier people. The Kentucky Center on Economic Policy has estimated that 20 percent of the richest Kentuckians will get 65 percent of the income tax back, resulting in even more income inequality.
This juggernaut is underway. If you like it, then just sit back.
If not, there’s only one answer.
“We still do live in a representative democracy,” Ziliak said. “People need to elect legislators who reflect their values. If voters feel otherwise they need to take action at the polls.”
This story was originally published January 18, 2024 at 8:16 AM.
