Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) went on a whole media and countrywide tour touting California’s “successes,” yet California remains the worst-governed state in the country.
California now has the highest unemployment rate in the country, losing 3,400 nonfarming jobs to jump past Nevada for the top spot with an unemployment rate of 5.3%. Furthermore, California’s job growth estimate of 58,100 jobs in January was revised down to 25,600, less than half the original estimate.
A former director of the California Employment Development Department, which calculates those numbers, said that COVID-19 lockdown orders were still hampering California’s job market, along with the state’s burdensome number of regulations. California is stifling its own success, and it is doing so thanks to the decisions made by Newsom and his Democratic legislative supermajority.
You do not need to look hard for other measures by which the state is failing. California’s budget deficit is a record $73 billion, with the state collecting fewer dollars in income taxes thanks to a population that is moving away due, in part, to ridiculously high housing costs. Newsom touts California as a state that is all about “freedom” while he and the legislature try to force residents into electric vehicles that the state then tells them not to charge for fear of overloading a weak “green” energy grid. Meanwhile, the state keeps lighting billions of dollars on fire that could be used for roads and other infrastructure on the dream of a never-ending (or really, never-beginning) high-speed rail project.
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California, by just about any metric you choose, is a failing state. It enjoys just about every natural advantage over other states: no humidity (unlike those states to the east), diverse geography (beaches, mountains, forests, and deserts to fill any of your recreational desires), and no severe weather events outside of occasional small earthquakes (no hurricanes or tornados). It is hard to imagine any reason someone wouldn’t love living in California outside of the decisions made by Newsom and the Democratic Party that rule the state without a single dissenting major decisionmaker.
Newsom and the California Democratic Party are running the state into the ground while presenting their governance as a model for Democrats across the country. Add this to the growing list of things Newsom should be made to answer for when he inevitably tries to jump to the presidency or another position in national politics.