Kudos to Tom Steyer for recognizing that Californians are struggling, but how about some humility? The policies he’s spent millions promoting have dramatically raised costs in the Golden State (Letters, Dec. 1). Fuel mandates, carbon schemes and regulatory expansions have directly led to higher prices. When a billionaire who can absorb those costs calls for “making California affordable,” it looks less like conviction and more like the latest poll-tested coat of paint on an agenda that treats higher costs as a virtue.

One bad bet in California politics in recent decades has been to assume that Antonio Villaraigosa, who’s now in the hunt for the governorship, was finished. Underestimating him is a fool’s game.