Let California moms keep our coupons — and keep government out of it

As a California mom, I don’t wake up wondering whether an algorithm determined which coupon landed in my inbox.

I wake up wondering why a quick trip to the grocery store now costs hundreds of dollars.

I wonder whether my children will ever be able to afford a home in the state where they were raised. I wonder how many more families are quietly putting groceries on a credit card just to get through the month.

Like millions of parents across California, I’m asking a simple question: When will Sacramento start making life more affordable instead of more complicated?

A supermarket cashier scans groceries.

That’s why Assembly Bill 2564, sponsored by Assembly member Chris Ward, feels so disconnected from the reality facing working families.

Supporters argue the bill protects consumers from “surveillance pricing.” That’s when businesses use personal data to customize prices.

Privacy matters, and Californians deserve transparency. Companies that misuse consumers’ personal information should be held accountable.

But AB 2564 goes much further.

It creates another layer of regulation that could make shopping for groceries much more expensive.

Every retailer, from the neighborhood market to the local hardware store, will have to devote more resources to attorneys, compliance reviews and risk management.

Large corporations may be able to absorb those costs.

Small businesses rarely can.

When government makes it more expensive to operate a business, those costs often show up through higher prices. Working families ultimately pay the price.

In addition, AB 2564 could make it impossible for stores to offer loyalty discounts, or specialized coupons.

California already has some of the nation’s strongest consumer privacy protections through the California Consumer Privacy Act and the California Privacy Rights Act.

Before creating another regulatory framework, lawmakers should first demonstrate why the protections Californians already voted for are inadequate.

Instead, Sacramento continues offering the same solution to nearly every challenge:

More government. More mandates. More bureaucracy. More regulation.

Californians are increasingly asking a different question: If more government is the answer, why does life keep getting more expensive?

That question will be front and center as voters decide the future direction of our state.

Across California, many progressive lawmakers are taking their cues from the Democratic Socialists of America.

The socialists in government place their faith in regulation rather than in free enterprise, innovation and market competition. Whether the issue is housing, energy, employment, or now, retail pricing, their instinct is always to expand government’s role.

But that isn’t the California most families want to leave to their children.

As mothers, we aren’t raising our children to depend on government to solve every problem. We’re raising them to work hard, think creatively, take risks, build businesses, invent new technologies, and contribute to their communities.

We don’t want shortcuts. We don’t want government control.

We want opportunity.

We want our children to believe that success comes from hard work, personal responsibility and innovation, not from a government that inserts itself into more and more aspects of everyday life.

That has always been the American promise.

Every unnecessary regulation makes that promise a little harder to fulfill.

California families are not asking Sacramento to micromanage every transaction between businesses and consumers. We’re asking our elected officials to make this state affordable again.

That means reducing unnecessary barriers to doing business, encouraging competition, supporting entrepreneurs, and allowing hardworking Californians to keep more of what they earn.

Privacy matters. So does affordability. And when those goals come into tension, lawmakers should be honest about the tradeoffs instead of pretending every new regulation comes without a cost.

As moms, we measure public policy differently than politicians do.

We don’t count success by the number of bills signed into law.

We measure it by whether our grocery bills are manageable. Whether small businesses are thriving instead of leaving California. Whether our children can build a future here without moving to another state.

California doesn’t need another law that expands government’s reach while making it harder to do business.

It needs leaders who trust families more than bureaucracy, opportunity more than regulation, and the American Dream more than the false promise that government control can solve every economic problem.

Shirin Yadegar is the founder of www.lamommagazine.com and a political commentator. 

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