If Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva gets her way, homeless people who live in their cars or RVs will not have to pay the state’s expensive vehicle license fee (VLF) – while working residents who obey the law and pay their taxes will have to pay every penny in order to legally drive their cars?
Quirk-Silva boasted on Twitter that several of her bills are heading to Governor Newsom, who may sign them into law:
One of them is AB 2775, which waives the vehicle license fee for homeless people who live in their car or RV. All they need is for someone from a designated list of occupations – including any licensed attorney – to certify you are homeless and bang!: your car or motor home is registered for free. Or rather, law-abiding taxpayers pick up the tab.
According to the Assembly floor analysis of the bill, the VLF costs the average Californian between $208 and $358 for each car, making the California one of the most expensive states to register a car.
Ask yourself – does that seem even remotely fair or equitable? Quirk-Silva’s bill is another manifestation of the complete disconnect between the progressive ruling class – of which she is a member – and the real world where everyone else lives.
In Sharon Quirk-Silva’s judgment, a drug addict who lives in their car shouldn’t be exempt from paying his or her car registration, but a mom or dad who needs to keep their registration current in order to drive to work to support their family and pay their bills? Well – tough luck. Social justice ain’t for free!
Quirk-Silva’s bill is hardly an outlier. On the contrary, it embodies the zeitgeist of California’s progressive ruling class: reward lawlessness, subsidize anti-social and self-destructive behavior while demanding obedience and payment from those whose lives are marked by industriousness and self-control.
One can make a case for clearing away obstacles to self-sufficiency for a homeless person who is motivated to achieve that goal and demonstratively working toward it. It’s one thing for a duly-constitute authority like a judge to accumulated tickets and fines for a recovering homeless addict making a sincere effort to get on his feet.
What Quirk-Silva wants is to take a societal mercy to be applied on a case-by-case basis and turned it into a entitlement while divorcing it from any requirement for responsible behavior.
