California Gov. Gavin Newsom is gloating once again about how much better his state is than its most prominent red state counterparts. He is probably hoping that noise drowns out his latest accounting blunder.
Newsom told legislators on Wednesday that the state would need to borrow $3.44 billion to make up a budget gap for Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program. That is the maximum the state is allowed to borrow, and it will only cover spending for the program through the end of this month.
It is another problem of Newsom’s own creation. The goverenor decided to expand Medi-Cal to all illegal immigrants last year, the final expansion that encourages illegal crossings. This was initially expected to cost $6 billion but, as is often the case with government spending and always the case with California government spending, the number ballooned to $9.5 billion.
It’s not as if the problem wasn’t telegraphed. Assemblyman Carl DeMaio flagged this issue last month when questioning Newsom’s Department of Finance. He was one of the handful of outspoken Republican critics of Newsom who were removed from their committees, with Assembly Democrats kicking him off the budget committee. This has been California’s problem, with everything from the grand high-speed rail to the state’s campaign finance portal coming in far over their projected budgets.
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Accounting has not been Newsom’s strong suit. He has spent the last couple of years working with Democrats in the legislature to make cuts and delay planned spending in order to dig the state out of its budget deficits. Newsom’s naïve progressive worldview has dug California into a budget hole time and time again, leaving the state to kick the can down the road year after year to protect his presidential ambitions.
Newsom can attempt to brag that he runs California better than Republicans run Florida or Texas, but the fact remains that California is the worst-run state in the country. Newsom’s years of failed accounting, combined with numerous other blunders, waste more money today and will leave California worse off in the future.