Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) is trying to push back on the notion that California is rife with fraud and financial waste. Now would be a bad time to revisit the state’s precarious budget position heading into the new year.
Newsom is on the defensive after the blooming Minnesota fraud scandal has turned eyes toward California. Even Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) is now pushing for a “full independent audit of California’s budget,” getting himself into a back-and-forth feud with Newsom’s obnoxious social media team on X in the process. The talking point from Newsom’s team is that there is no scandal behind the curtain; “The Governor takes fraud seriously,” Newsom’s team says.
CALIFORNIA SCAPEGOATS BILLIONAIRES FOR ITS RECKLESS BUDGETING
But how true is that? There is obviously waste, as evidenced by California plunging itself into a budget deficit year after year. Newsom started 2025 with a planned surplus of a relatively meager $363 million. By May, that became an estimated deficit of $12 billion, thanks in part to Newsom’s shoddy accounting when it came to giving “free” taxpayer-funded healthcare to all illegal immigrants in the state. Now, the state’s budget deficit is up to a projected $18 billion, as the state outspends the tax revenue produced by California’s artificial intelligence boom.
California, despite imposing a massive tax burden on its residents, has had this problem for years now. Democrats in Sacramento push massive programs that always end up costing more than estimated, and then make temporary cuts or delay spending on multiple programs to try and corral the deficit. They then find ways to increase taxes on residents. There is your waste.
Newsom’s team is also going all-in on defending the high-speed rail, despite the fact that the bastardized, shortened version of the project is tens of billions of dollars over budget compared to the longer, promised project, that the state hasn’t even started laying track despite the entire project promised completion date passing five years ago, and the fact that it does not currently have the funding it needs to continue.
CALIFORNIA’S INCOMPETENT HOMELESS RESPONSE IS COSTING MILLIONS
Newsom’s team says this is not fraud because the billions already poured into the project have “created 16,000 union jobs” and “built 50+ COMPLETED projects.” (Capitalization original). In other words, those billions were union giveaways that the state has used to “complete” anything other than the train that was promised to be completed in 2020. Yes, there is your fraud.
California wastes billions of dollars year after year with little purpose or oversight, as evidenced by an audit of the state’s homelessness spending, which determined the state didn’t even know how that money was being spent. California’s government is one giant, bloated bureaucracy with dreams of changing the world and the financial responsibility of a child with unfettered access to his parents’ credit cards. Its spending is rife with fraud and abuse, and everyone, including Newsom’s team, knows it.