Gavin Newsom is running for President. He may not have announced yet, but there’s no doubt about it: he’s off.
This week Kamala Harris and Jill Biden stepped up as President Biden underwent root canal work. Though it’s rumored that the Vice President was already due to give a speech and the President chose to have root canal work instead. As anyone would.
Still, as this was going on, the Governor of California did some work of his own. As well as making an announcement about a new gun law he was also this week interviewed by Sean Hannity on Fox. There is no reason why any Democrat governor would put himself up to that unless he had the top prize in his sights.
And so it turned out.
Newsom used the time he had — and splashed all over social media afterwards — his version of what a wonderful job he’s done in California.
He said in the interview (and claimed again afterwards on social media) that California has outperformed the nation economically.
He claimed that his state is number one for new business start ups, access to venture capital funding and tourism spending.
All of which was a round-about way to say “screw you Florida and Texas.”
Yet even when he did say something truthful about economics, Newsom was being wildly “economical” with the truth.
Because although some measures show that California has more business openings than other states, that is in part because California’s population of almost 40 million is nearly twice as high as that of Florida (22.24 million).
Even in Newsom’s California you would expect a significantly larger population to have significantly more startups. Though proportionate to population size California actually did worse.
But what’s interesting is that during Newsom’s time in office California has actually had negative growth in new business openings.
Between 2019 and 2022 California had -4% growth. Meanwhile Florida had +23% growth and Texas +21% growth
So not quite so rosy after all, Gavin.
But it’s the same with all his boasts. For instance, that claim that California has way more tourism spending than any other state.
In fact the last year we have figures for both states is 2021 and in that year California was indeed the most visited US state (Florida the second). That year tourism spending in California was $102 billion, while in Florida it was $101.9 billion. So despite being almost twice the population size Newsom’s California managed only a $0.1 billion increase on Florida. Way to boast, Governor.
Still more telling than the boasts that Newsom did make were the admissions that he did not. And that’s a shame because there are a lot of other figures that could be cited when it comes to Gavin Newsom’s California.
For instance, there is the fact that although California accounts for 11% of the US population it is home to 30% of the nation’s homeless population. And rising. All as a direct result of the incentive for homelessness policies brought in by Newsom, first as mayor of San Francisco and then as governor of the state.
During his time as governor, California has seen a flight of residents from the state. Between 2020 and 2022 California lost more than half a million people who upped sticks and left. It may be of interest to the governor that at the same time Florida gained over 700,000 people and Texas more than 884,000 people.
“Eat your heart out Texas” Newsom said to Hannity this week. A strange boast given that Texas has been welcoming refugees from Newsom’s California by the hundreds of thousands.
And why wouldn’t they leave? Because aside from the homelessness, the crime and the taxation California is even struggling to keep the lights on.
Under Newsom, the state has the sixth-highest household electricity prices in the whole country and faces another set of rolling blackouts of the kind that happened last year. In fact so bad have things got that the state that likes to boast about its renewable energy industry recently voted to delay the closure of its last nuclear power plant.
In state finances California is failing on every level. Even Newsom himself admitted last month that his state’s budget deficit is now $32 billion. He may be interested to know that Texas, by contrast has a $32.7 billion budget surplus and Florida a budget surplus of $21.8 billion.
Perhaps Newsom is just running up the debt because he’s really pouring money into good things like education. But no.
Last year just 33% of California’s 4th graders were proficient in math and just 42% were proficient in English Language Arts. In other words over half of the kids in the state are failing badly. The body that marks the nation’s educational attainments by state found that although Texas and Florida were among the jurisdictions to score “significantly higher” than the national average, California was one of those that scored “significantly lower.”
For all his boasts, Gavin Newsom is presiding over a state where the lights can’t stay on, where homelessness and crime are rampant and where he has run up a massive state-debt in order to educate children worse than anywhere.
Newsom said this week that he has been trying to debate Ron DeSantis “for years.” Well, if he really is foolish enough to want to do that then I for one will look forward to watching.
Crazy bicyclists menace to New Yorkers
Has anybody else noticed that walking in New York is becoming more and more of an assault course?
I only know one person who has actually been hospitalized by being hit by a delivery bike.
But now that they come at you silently from every direction, no matter which street or sidewalk you’re on, it must be happening more and more. When I first arrived in the city I used to scowl at the bikes coming towards me the wrong way down the street. Now I’m a bit more of a local I tend to say “Da F–k?” Neither has any impact. Still they just merrily sail along their way.