Why the left ignores it's own interests.

7 min read

I asked Googles AI how much money would California save if they stopped providing free social and educational to the undocumented. Total is 31 billion. Below is the answer.

What would 31 billion anually be able to pay for? To put a sum like $31 billion annually into perspective, it is a massive amount of money—especially when scaled to a state level like California. To give you an idea of what that kind of money can buy, look at how it compares to real-world infrastructure, state budgets, and public programs.

1. Wiping Out State Deficits and Building Reserves

State budgets often fluctuate wildly based on tax revenue. A consistent $31 billion every year could completely reshape a state's financial health:

Erase Deficits: For context, California's projected state budget deficit for the 2025–2026 fiscal year was estimated at around $11.8 billion to $15 billion. A single year of $31 billion could wipe out that entire deficit and leave over $15 billion in surplus.
Max Out Rain Day Funds: It could more than double California's total rainy-day financial reserves (the Budget Stabilization Account), which sits around $11.2 billion.

2. Massive Infrastructure & Transit Projects

Large-scale infrastructure projects are notorious for their high costs, but $31 billion a year would allow a state to build or repair vast amounts of public works without taking on debt:

High-Speed Rail: California’s ongoing High-Speed Rail project (stretching from San Francisco to Los Angeles) has faced massive delays and spiraling costs, estimated at well over $100 billion total. $31 billion annually could fully fund and finish the entire multi-decade megaproject in roughly 3 to 4 years.
Bridges and Highways: The historic rebuild of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge Eastern Span cost roughly $6.5 billion. You could build nearly five of those megabridges every single year.
State-of-the-Art Schools: In California, building a brand new, massive, high-tech public high school from the ground up (including expensive land acquisition) costs roughly $350 million. With $31 billion, a state could construct nearly 90 brand-new high schools every year.

3. Healthcare for Millions

Medical care is one of the most expensive sectors in the United States, but $31 billion would buy an immense amount of coverage:

Covering the Uninsured: The average cost to provide comprehensive healthcare coverage for an individual under Medicaid programs is roughly $8,000 to $10,000 per year. $31 billion could fully subsidize premium health insurance for 3 million to 3.8 million lower-income citizens annually.

4. Higher Education for Everyone

Higher education costs have skyrocketed, but a $31 billion annual injection could completely upend the university system:

Free University Tuition: Total tuition revenue for the entire University of California (UC) system—which includes UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, etc., and serves nearly 300,000 students—is roughly $5 billion per year.
With $31 billion annually, you could make tuition 100% free for every single student at every UC campus, every California State University (CSU) campus, and every California Community College, and still have over $20 billion left over every year to build new campuses or fund scientific research.

5. Solving Homelessness and Housing

Housing is one of the most visible crises in major metropolitan areas:

Building Affordable Housing: If the average cost to construct a dedicated unit of supportive permanent housing for the unhoused is $500,000, $31 billion could fund the construction of 62,000 permanent housing units every year, entirely wiping out physical shelter deficits over a short period.

And this is just one state.