Gavin Newsom is promising to do something he’s never accomplished before: Improve the lives of the working class.
Newsom has been campaigning for president most of the time he’s been California’s governor, with all his national and international appearances, podcasts and websites. Now he’s discovering the working class through Substack on his way to New Hampshire after seven years of failure.
“The world just got its first trillionaire. At the same time, millions of people are struggling to get by and a generation is falling behind their parents,” Newsom posted on X. “If that’s not a five-alarm fire, I don’t know what is”
The fact that younger generations are falling behind prior generations is not news, especially in California, where by the state’s own data the cost of living has increased by more than 30% since Newsom was elected governor in 2018.
The fire started here.
Newsom and his Democratic supermajority have presided over one of the highest poverty rates in the country. California leads the nation in homelessness, despite billions of dollars dumped into anti-homelessness programs. Middle income and working class families are fleeing the state – many of those he claims to be championing.
If California was Newsom’s audition, Americans shouldn’t expect him to perform better with a bigger job. His record suggests he has no idea how to actually help improve the lives of average Californians, and meaningless phrases like “democratize the economy to save democracy” just prove he’s flailing.
Newsom has increasingly pitted workers against the rich in an effort to appease the left wing of the Democratic Party. But it’s flawed logic. I’m not any better or worse off because of Jeff Bezos’ yacht – his net worth doesn’t drive up my rent and his stock portfolio didn’t give me the second highest energy prices in the country. What does do those things is a housing shortage driven by permitting delays, and an energy policy that overtaxes every gallon I pump.
Nationally, worker wages have stagnated, whereas in California they’ve grown much faster. But this isn’t the talking point Newsom might think it is since wages gains are eroded by California’s rapidly rising cost of living. Groceries cost 11% more than the national average here. Gas costs 40% more. Electricity costs 61% more. A bigger paycheck got swallowed by even bigger bills.
Newsom says he’s pro-worker, but he signed into law AB 5, the most anti-worker law ever imagined that hinders the surest way to gain wealth and climb the economic ladder – entrepreneurship. And his environmental agenda will cost each California household around $20,000, according to a study by the Pacific Research Institute.
The real problem is not my relationship to a rich person, it is my relationship to the cost of living. Wealth isn’t a finite resource, which is why it continues to increase across all cohorts.
All of us can get richer at the same time, but Newsom’s framing assumes that wealth is a fixed pie and that my neighbor’s gain must be my loss. It isn’t how a growing economy works, and it’s not why Californians are struggling. But whether I make $1 million a year or $1 a year is irrelevant unless one considers what those salaries can purchase.
As governor, Newsom has had a lot of influence over things like housing costs, housing production, gas prices, electricity rates, insurance carriers fleeing the state, tax burdens.
At times Newsom has taken some actions that might serve to improve some of these issues, like suing cities over stalling housing production. But the vast majority of the time he elected to do nothing or make matters worse.
Newsom just signed into law what the California Taxpayers Association called the largest tax increase in state history. He’s had years to fix CEQA, the single biggest obstacle to housing production, and yet has only nibbled around the edges. Gas taxes keep climbing and California is a national leader in price at the pump. Job losses have hit most industries under his watch. And he’s championed policies that sound pro-worker but are actually the opposite, like rent control that shrinks the market it’s supposed to help, and minimum wage hikes that lead to higher prices, fewer jobs and reduced hours.
Most recently, Newsom campaigned to help the middle- and working-class by promoting a national wealth tax, all while opposing a wealth tax in California – an inconsistency that can only be explained by the fact that one has real consequences (state), while the other one is just something he says to appeal to voters (national).
A wealth tax is a terrible idea, and he should be commended for doing what he can to sink the California version, but his support for a national measure shows he’s willing to say anything to get elected – and then probably do nothing.
Newsom craves attention. He’s chased a spot on Joe Rogan’s show and impersonated Trump while insinuating Trump is like Hitler. He’s posed in Davos and China. He’s vacationed in the South while cameras waited. He’s toured early primary states courting national press.
There’s a five-alarm fire, all right. But it was lit in California, not Washington, and Newsom is the arsonist in chief. Californians are burnt to a crisp.
Matt Fleming is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. You can contact him at FlemingWords@gmail.com and follow him on X @FlemingWords