Let’s start by looking at some of Newsom’s non-pandemic related failures.
California’s governor is expected to sign into law a bill that critics say would make it difficult, if not impossible, for trucking companies in the state to use independent contractor owner-operator truck drivers.
if you’re one of the estimated 76,000 owners of a truck with a “pre-2010 emissions-spec engine” and are a California resident or operate a vehicle there, California could ban you from driving your truck starting on January 1, 2023.
It’s official: California dreamin’ has become a nightmare.
According to the California Policy Lab, which is affiliated with the University of California, the number of people leaving the state is up 12 percent since before COVID-19.
In fact, there are
more people heading out than coming in.
Even before the pandemic, a survey from Edelman Intelligence found that more than half of residents in California said they wanted to high-tail it to another state. Among millennial residents, it was almost two-thirds.
Chalk it up to cost of living — the 13.3 percent max income tax rate is the country’s highest — as well as safety and other quality of life issues. And then there are the housing prices: Per Zillow, the median home value in San Francisco is almost $1.4 million. (No wonder “Should I move out?” has topped the Google search rankings there.)
Just under 700,000 people loaded up a moving truck and said goodbye to the Golden State last year.
U.S. census data shows that only a half million moved to California during that same time.
That means there are 200,000 more residents going out than coming in.
Newsom touts the state as a nationwide leader in the area of green energy. But despite all that praise, California can’t even keep the lights on. Back in August, at least one million residents were left in the dark, and this was not a lone occurrence. The
Wall Street Journal reported that California struggled to find 8,000 megawatts of electricity on those dark August evenings, and at times the state was short up to 15,000 megawatts after sunset. That’s because California relies heavily on solar power, and solar power doesn’t work at night.
“Two numbers help explain why California finds itself scrounging for megawatts on many evenings,” said Rebecca Smith and Katherine Blunt. “Between 2014 and 2018, the state reduced its consumption of electricity from natural gas-fired power plants by 21% according to the state’s energy commission. Over the same period, it increased renewable energy consumption by 54%.”
We are all too familiar with wildfires here in California. While climate change is a factor, there is a bigger factor at play; forest management. Forest management practices in California are not ideal, to say the least. Newsom has even acknowledged that, saying “I am not going to say that the forest management practices in California over the last 100 years have been ideal. Not for one second. But there’s something else going on, not just bad past practices.”
Notice how he mentions “over the last 100 years” and “past practices.” This was a clear attempt to shirk responsibility by blaming it on past leaders, but that shouldn’t fool anyone.
He then proceeded to push the narrative the climate change is the problem, saying “We’re going to have to fast track our efforts in terms of meeting our [clean energy] goals much sooner.”
What he did not talk about fast-tracking, however, are improvements to the state’s forest management practices. He just took advantage of the situation to push his radical climate agenda.
Not only has Newsom not worked to remedy the water shortages faced by the state, but he has actively worked to make the problem worse. Back in April, Newsom issued new water restrictions as part of a newly released Incidental Take Permit (ITP).
The purpose of these new restrictions was to ensure “that our state water infrastructure operates in a manner protective of fish species listed under the state’s endangered species law,” said Department of Water Resources Director Karla Nemeth and California Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Charlton H. Bonham.
So Newsom decided that limiting the already scarce water supply was necessary to protect fish.
To make matters worse, California has had one of the rainiest centuries in 7,000 years according to a UC Davis study. The problem is, Newsom refuses to build water storage facilities and instead allows trillions of gallons of water to be directed to the ocean. Why you ask? To please environmentalists.
Now let’s take a look at Newsom’s failures relating to the pandemic.
California’s handling of unemployment benefits throughout the pandemic has been abysmal. Last week, a state auditor blasted the Employment Development Department for the extremely preventable failures that took place in 2020. The state paid out unemployment benefits to crime syndicates in foreign countries, prison inmates both in and out of the state, and other “bad actors” who took advantage of the system.
“While this helped many individuals in need during the pandemic, bad actors took advantage of the crisis to abuse the system,” wrote Newsom.
Again, look at how Newsom shirks responsibility. While it is true that people took advantage of the system, that wouldn’t have been possible if it was operated in a secure and efficient manner.
Overall, California is estimated to have paid out billions in fraudulent unemployment claims (our tax dollars), and it will take at least several months to get to the bottom of it. Not only that, but 1.7 million Californians may have to repay $5.5 billion in benefits that they were mistakenly granted.
California has been ranked
dead last out of all 50 states for vaccine distribution. Enough said.
And then there are the homeless. If laws prohibiting vagrancy, petty theft, intoxication, and sale of hard drugs could be enforced again, the deterrent effect would mean, overnight, that half California’s homeless would suddenly find find shelter with friends and family. The rest of them could be housed in inexpensive barracks in inexpensive parts of California’s cities. The
billions of dollars saved could be used to help them. But that would disrupt the profits of the
Homeless Industrial Complex. So in Newsom’s California, expect to see more chaos on our streets, as countless lives are allowed to be destroyed under the pretext of “compassion” and “liberty.”
When it comes to the basic needs of Californians, water, energy, food, shelter, transportation, and safety, the Newsom machine has failed completely. A future with Newsom and his people in charge would mean soaking taxpayers for additional billions – ok, tens of billions – on “affordable housing” and “permanent supportive housing,” while the cost of housing would remain prohibitive. They’d continue to build these
boondoggles at a cost, well documented, of over 500,000 per unit, along with “innovative tiny homes,” only 64 square feet in size, at a total project cost of
over $200,000 per unit.
Step back a moment and think about this. Even in California, a crew of honest tradesmen could go buy a 120 square foot shed at
Home Depot for around $5,000, and for another $20,000, if not much less, they could transport it, put it on a foundation, install plumbing, electric hookups, a bathroom and kitchenette, hook it up to the utility grid and someone could move in. But no. These “tiny homes,” half that size, cost ten times that much, and we’re supposed to be thrilled.
This is what out-of-control corruption looks like. This is the true face of California’s “progressive” movement. It is a movement whose public rhetoric comes from smarmy politicians like Gavin Newsom and passionate grassroots activists, but whose financial and political power rests in the hands of monopolistic corporations and entrenched government bureaucracies.
Why not
deregulate housing, invest in enabling infrastructure, and allow more construction on raw land on the perimeter of existing cities and along freeway corridors? Why not reduce the excessive building fees and eliminate unnecessary, crippling delays in getting projects approved? Why not quarry aggregate, mine lithium, extract natural gas, and log and mill timber here in California? These steps would take hundreds of thousands of dollars off the price of a new home. But they would also undermine the power of the special interests that profit from scarcity.
This is life in Newsom’s California. This is the future he offers you.
Anybody would be better. If you don’t like Republicans, vote for Paffrath, who is a Democrat with bold new ideas. At his political core, Gavin Newsom represents corporate corruption. A machine that spews progressive rhetoric on the topics of climate change, race, and gender while completely failing to meet the basic needs of every Californian regardless of where they come from or what they believe.
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