California has been subjected to nearly seven years of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom‘s incoherent decisions, and residents will be left reaping the consequences for years after he leaves office.
Newsom’s revised budget includes limits on healthcare spending for illegal immigrants after he wanted to crash ahead and cover health costs for all illegal immigrants, which would have cost an estimated $6 billion. However, that unsurprisingly ballooned to $9.5 billion. Newsom was so committed to this idea that, in March, he wanted the state to borrow more than $3 billion to make up the gap, which would only cover spending through the end of the month.
Newsom had to walk the plan back because California was staring down yet another budget deficit, this time one of $12 billion. This has been the norm for Newsom over the last several years, with California making minor cuts and delaying other spending programs to deal with at a later date. In June 2023, the state was staring at a $32 billion deficit. In December 2023, the state Legislative Analyst’s Office put the deficit at $58 billion over the next three years. In April 2024, the estimate was between $38 billion and $73 billion.
In every case, California kicked the budget can down the road, deciding to address it another day. Newsom is running out of those days, as he will be term-limited out of office soon. He will then almost certainly begin chasing the Democratic nomination for president in 2028.
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However, this is not the only problem Newsom will saddle Californians with after he escapes the governor’s mansion. A report from Michael Mische at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business found that gas prices in the state could reach $7-$8 a gallon by the end of 2026 after two oil refinery closures were recently announced. Newsom will also leave Californians with the never-ending construction of the high-speed rail, which is massively overbudgeted (currently missing another $7 billion to get it through next month), dramatically behind schedule (the whole thing was supposed to be completed five years ago), and not even half the distance of the original plan.
Newsom has made these problems worse. And in a year and a half, he will dump all those problems on the desk of the Democrat who replaces him, leaving Californians to pick up the pieces after his eight years of running the state into the ground.