That’s unfortunate; I’ve used the same credit union for about 22 years and have never had any issues like you describe at all. My experience has been incredibly smooth and I’ve never had any issues with availability of funds coming into or out of my account. Hopefully you can find a better one.

Also don’t forget about credit unions.

Baby steps are great, and I’m a huge fan of the strongtowns mentality of “what is the next smallest thing we can do that will make progess”.

Unfortunately this is a baby step nowhere, and most likely a big boy step backwards. It won’t meaningfully reduce carbon emissions even if everything else stays the same. Unfortunately things probably won’t stay the same, instead prices for food and transportation will increase leading towards resentment towards climate change policies and those that enacted them.

I appreciate California’s efforts but these kind of half measures are at best nearly useless in terms of fighting CO2 emissions and are likely to be counter productive.

Nearly useless because vehicles only account for 25% of emissions. So even if CA replaced 100% of their gasoline and diesel with 0 carbon fuels it would reduce nationwide CO2 by about 3% (assuming California is 12% of the population and 12% of the 25% of emissions from vehicles). That’s nice, but really not something that will move the needle on climate change. So best case scenario there’s no meaningful changes in global emissions.

Even under this best case co2 reduction this is going to increase transportation and food costs. This pisses people off, further alienating them from the Democratic party. This will push the electorate towards Republicans who will promise to lower gas prices that the Democrats are pushing up with useless policies to fight the global warming hoax. This further hampers other efforts to address co2 emissions and climate change.

To live and work nearly anywhere in the United States, California included, you will almost always be dependent on your car. Since there’s no real substitute good to buy when fuel prices increase there’s no practical way to avoid the finacial hardship caused by this misguided policy. Raising fuel prices without viable alternatives to car travel won’t change anything and will make people angry and resentful towards those that are responsible for raising fuel prices.

We need to stop chasing half assed non-solutions and start building solutions that are viable alternatives to car travel. Build roads that are safe for pedestrians and micromobility. Build reliable and safe public transportation wherever it’s feasible. Reduce the number of cars trips by incentivizing work from home.

Who knows, maybe these steps will decrease demand for cars and fuel so much that prices of electric cars and 0 carbon fuels will come down enough that we’ll be able to 100% replace co2 emissions where public transit isn’t feasible without causing a financial hardship. Until then this is another poor political choice with no real upside by Democrats.

Oh shit you’re the one who shared those online articles? Thank you for your service 🫡

In the the US laws are passed by the legislative branch, in particular laws around spending are passed by the House of Represtatives. Currently the House or Representatives is controlled by the Republican party, the party of which Donald Trump is the undisputed leader. As such Trump has sufficient control over the Republican party to broadly control the parties legislative priorities, including spending. In fact he has already used this authority to enact his legislative priorities around spending and immigration reform among other things.

Donald Trump has directed the Republican party to support the genocide in Gaza, so the Republican party provides the funding necessary to for the IDF to conduct the genocide in Gaza.

Additionally when Donald Trump was president he did several things to empower Israel including moving the US embassy to Jerusalem and required all Palestinian affairs to go through this embassy.

While the Democratic party has played a part in supporting the genocide, Donald Trump and the Republican party absolutely have the power to stop the US from passing funding bills to arm the IDF and help stop the genocide. Instead he and the Republican party he leads enthusiastically support what Israel has been doing in Gaza and now are trying to do in Lebanon. There’s every reason he’ll take the US’s support for the genocide even further.