When I arrived in the legislature as a newly minted state legislator, I was shocked by what I found in the annual state budget. A bloated and reckless spending plan stuffed with pork, misguided priorities and overspending on feel-good social programs at a time when a strong cinching of the belt was in order to preserve essential services.
That was 2010 and Democrats spent what I called an “absurd” $129 billion that year.
Fast forward and California’s budget has exploded to an unprecedented $321 billion despite repeated warnings from experts that the money is running – and has now run – dry. And what have we gotten for this prodigious spending? Are we better off today than we were then?
We don’t have cleaner, safer streets. A quick visit to any downtown in the state makes painfully obvious our homeless and drug problem. Crime is rampant, with violent crime rates significantly higher here than the rest of the nation.
California remains the homeless capital of America with nearly 200,000 unhoused calling our streets home – even as Gov. Gavin Newsom has poured nearly $40 billion into homeless programs during his tenure. Billions spent, nothing solved. The state auditor found that money was poorly tracked thanks to a haphazard, spend-first, ask-questions-later approach from the governor’s office.
We also certainly don’t have a fire-safe state. Republicans have been sounding alarms for Newsom’s entire 15-year career in Sacramento, pleading with him to act on our wildland management problem – to no avail. He’s even gone so far as to flat out lie to the public, claiming 90 thousand acres had been thinned and cleared when the actual number was little more than 10 thousand.
Last year, he vetoed Republican legislation to increase pay for state fire crews and has continued to rebuff calls for needed resilience and response investment even in the face of catastrophic loss of life and property on his watch. Burn scars dotting our state from Paradise to Pacific Palisades show clearly his failure to prioritize fire prevention.
We don’t have a stronger education system, either. Ask any California parent. More than half of our students are failing to meet basic standards in math, English, and science.
Later this week, Newsom will unveil yet another massive spending plan as part of his State of the State address on Thursday. And this time, he’ll do it with one eye firmly on his presidential ambitions. He’ll talk of a California under attack. He’ll portray himself as the David to the president’s Goliath – a convenient and recurring, albeit false, narrative of his nascent presidential campaign. He’ll use it to shirk responsibility and justify putting his wants over California’s needs. More reckless spending justified as political resistance.
What you won’t hear is a clear, sensible path forward. A budget is a statement of priorities – and Gov. Newsom’s priorities have consistently failed to represent the priorities of Californians. Don’t expect that to change this week as he paints a pretty picture on top of the decay he’s caused.
Californians don’t prioritize vanity projects over wildfire prevention. We don’t put political publicity stunts ahead of public safety. We don’t believe in throwing good money after bad, like Newsom did this fall when he shoveled another $20 billion to the high-speed rail disaster rather than redirecting that money to water storage, conveyance, roads and highways as my Republican colleagues and I have implored.
Newsom’s priorities are backwards, and it’s time for a change.
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This week, Californians should watch closely. Look past the saber rattling and campaign rhetoric. Read between the lines of your governor’s convenient narrative. Check the budget. Study the priorities. And ask yourself: Are they your priorities too? Is our state in better shape today than when Newsom was first coronated in Sacramento back in 2011?
Brian Jones, representing San Diego, serves as the Senate Minority Leader.
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