Rotten regulations: Even your trash can't escape California's red tape

We’re all familiar with the impact of regulations. Sometimes, they’re in your face, like the taxes we pay or how long it takes to navigate the DMV. Other times, they’re pedantic annoyances, like the permits some states require for kids’ lemonade stands or when hair braider licenses require more training hours than EMTs. 

And sometimes they even impact how you take out your trash.

That’s what we’re seeing in California, where a combination of state, federal, and county regulations resulted in the closure of a landfill that was serving Los Angeles County. Local citizens, the landfill, and elected officials are dealing with a challenging and rare chemical reaction taking place in an old part of the landfill. It has been a massive undertaking that involves federal and numerous state regulatory bodies.

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But here’s where the progressive rubber meets the reality road: People didn’t stop throwing out their trash, so the closure hasn’t solved any problems. It’s merely increased the cost and complexity of trash removal, because county taxes are now paying for transport to a landfill further away.

Too often, government policies are based not on helping people, but on a politician’s personal and professional goals. Is there a financial crash? Regulate the banks (after bailing them out)! Is healthcare expensive? Put stringent regulations on them (even though it increases the costs)! Close all the restaurants during COVID (but keep open the ones that serve Hollywood)!

These grandstanding policies have real impacts on real people. When the federal government was raising the minimum wage almost two decades ago, Walmart received a lot of praise for supporting the effort. The problem was that Walmart pay was already above the minimum wage, so there was no impact on that company. But there were a lot of impacts on its small, local competitors, who went out of business.

That’s good for Walmart. For small business owners? Not so much.

California is the poster child for policies that generate attention but have little positive impact on those who have the least flexibility and power. One of the highest income taxes (to fund social welfare)? Check. Insane cost of living (caused in cities like San Francisco by housing regulations and across-the-state by high taxes)? Check. Massive environmental bureaucracy that somehow leaves fire hydrants depleted, reservoirs empty, and trash removal more expensive?

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Check, check, check. And as we’ve seen, not even landfills – or your trash cans – are safe.

It’s no wonder Golden State residents can’t flee fast enough. And those who are left behind may not have enough jobs to support them. From 2018 to 2021 alone, 352 companies moved their headquarters out of California to more business-friendly states because, in part, they don’t want to pay the state’s 8.84% corporate tax rate, which is the 8th highest in the nation. Instead, they are heading to states like Texas, which has no corporate tax. 

With fewer people, there are fewer households to pony up taxes and fund the extravagant programs that elected officials in California have enacted. That means the residents and businesses who decide to stick it out are now faced with even higher taxes, increased costs of living, and higher fees for trash pickup.

Regulations have real impacts, especially in states like California that are so over-regulated that even trash collection is affected. That’s a basic municipal service that is essential to the health and well-being of all residents. But maybe they won’t be residents for much longer anyway. Maybe those dinner table conversations will be about which state they should pack up and move to.