SO IT’S A NEVER-ENDING CRISIS THEN: How to end California’s worsening cost-of-living crisis — politicians must stop lying.

Their cost comparisons show that Californians pay 124% more to own a home, 50% more to rent an apartment, 50% more for gas, 27% more for food, 48% more for water, 45% more for taxes, 51% more for childcare, 101% more for electricity, and 20% more for car insurance.

The only way to fix this cost-of-living crisis is for voters to conduct an intervention at the ballot box in the 2026 midterm elections. Until politicians start losing their seats over the affordability issue, nothing will get fixed.

Reform California, an initiative I founded, is making affordability the top wedge issue in every targeted seat in this November’s state legislative elections.

We need to get the truth out to the voters about why California’s costs are so high. As long as politicians can lie and shift the blame to others, they will never be held accountable and nothing will be fixed.

For example, in the past year Gov. Gavin Newsom has repeatedly blamed California’s entire affordability crisis on President Donald Trump’s tariffs. And for years before that, whenever gas prices rise, Newsom has held a press conference to blame oil companies for “price gouging.”

Earlier this month, Tom Steyer, a Democratic billionaire donor-turned-candidate-for-president-turned-candidate-for-governor, spent millions on campaign ads to blame “monopolies” for high electricity prices.

All of the blame-shifting requires you to believe that tariffs, monopolies and price gouging only happen in California.

The best refutation is the California vs. national cost comparison data in the Transparency Foundation. The numbers prove state and local policies are the real problem.

The solution, as the wise man once said, is “Get the hell out of my way!”

But good luck with that in a state run by progressives and feel-good busy-body ballot initiatives.