California Gov. Gavin Newsom is ambitious. He has cultivated the air of someone who looks into the mirror and sees a president staring back. And when Newsom looks out a window, he sees a state that will serve as his vehicle on the road to the White House. It’s a curious illusion.
His state’s critics, by contrast, see a basket case characterized by the spectacular mismanagement of the state’s vast resources, Dickensian levels of social stratification, and a population that cannot flee fast enough from one of the most hospitable climates on earth. Newsom’s fantasies notwithstanding, California never fails for long to remind its critics why they’re right.
At the beginning of this year, Sacramento believed it had stumbled into a miracle. The notoriously profligate state was expected to enjoy a windfall $45 billion budget surplus. …
It was a lovely interlude. This week, Californians learned that those happy projections were off the mark by $122 billion. Yes, one hundred and twenty-two billion dollars. California does not have a budget surplus at all but a deficit to the tune of $25 billion. What’s more, the Golden State’s penury is, according to analysts, an outgrowth of inflation and the Federal Reserve’s efforts to tame consumer demand. In other words, this was perfectly foreseeable months ago.
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