California Democrats Legalize Child Prostitution

Travis Allen








One such new Democratic-authored law throws open the door to even greater government dependency on the part of the poor by rolling back proven reforms. In 1996, welfare reform was one of the greatest social legislation achievements of the last century, ending the lifetime welfare system and putting millions of Americans on the road to self-reliance and self-respect. In its wake, California lawmakers passed a law barring increased payments to women who have more children while still on welfare, in order to encourage women to achieve independence before having more children.

It’s a tough provision that works — which was apparently irrelevant to Gov. Jerry Brown, who just signed a bill repealing that prohibition. Henceforth, no matter how many children someone has while on welfare, the state government will ratchet up payments with each child, with no limit. Incredibly, the Democratic author of this bill claims she wants to discourage women from having more children while on welfare — but instead passed legislation replacing that effective reform with a law that restarts the cycle of welfare dependency.

In similarly inverted fashion, state Democrats have taken action to make California’s youth unemployment rate — one of the nation’s highest — even worse by boosting the minimum wage. It is an empirical fact that minimum-wage hikes increase unemployment among those who are the least skilled and most in need of entry-level jobs — our youth. Like other misguided liberal policies, this latest minimum-wage legislation will only lead to fewer jobs for our youth.


The common thread running through this avalanche of liberal-left legislation is the total absence of common sense and a stubborn insistence on ignoring human nature. On a certain level, we shouldn’t be surprised. After all, progressives still believe eliminating poverty is a matter of spending enough money on enough government programs. Despite spending $15 trillion on anti-poverty and welfare programs since 1965, our national poverty rate is actually slightly higher today than it was then.

California is loaded with natural resources and talented people who want to work hard, be successful and enjoy the fruits of that success. The tragedy is that California is in the grip of liberal politicians who believe we can help underage prostitutes by making it legal for them to be prostitutes; who believe we can reduce welfare dependence by increasing opportunities to become dependent; and who think we can increase employment by making it more expensive to hire people. California is ruled by a political party that places a higher priority on dictating to public schools their mascot choices than enabling parents to send their kids to the school of their choice.

Do Brown and the Democrat politicians behind this wave of bad legislation mean well? I believe they do, but unfortunately they’re only succeeding in proving that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It’s the bad luck of Californians that they’re dragging the rest of our state down that road with them.

Travis Allen, a Republican, represents the 72nd Assembly District in the California legislature. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.



by Rocco Piserchia
