Which California? Robust and Healthy or Sinking into the Ooze? Newsom Defends his Vision

Newsom’s list of positives about the state included:

• California is an economic power, its economy the fourth largest in the world.
• The state has more Fortune 500 companies.
• The state has more scientists, engineers and Nobel laureates than any other state.
• Higher education is the best in the world.
• California is dominant in manufacturing and agriculture.
• The state’s population has increased for a couple of years to counter critics who say California is losing population.
• And Newsom’s favorite boast, the future happens here first.

Doom and gloom about California is not new. It finds its way into national media from time to time. Former Governor Jerry Brown recalls seeing an article in LOOK Magazine belittling California when his father was governor in the mid-20^th century. Yet, the stories of the state’s woes keep coming as in a New York Times piece this year. While the state has the tendency to bounce back over the years, current suggestions of California’s decline come with the backdrop of a coming presidential election.

Critics of the state have a lot to say. California naysayers challenge the governor’s portrait of the state pointing to the state’s bottom rankings in homelessness, poverty, school performance and housing affordability, to name a few.

The state’s budget, which has increased 60% in just the half-dozen years since the pandemic while Newsom has been governor, is in deficit and is projected to be so for some time.

Specifically, criticism and counterpoints can be found from multiple sources on the topics Newsom raises.

In a recent column by veteran California reporter and commentator Dan Walters titled, California’s economy is just limping along. Why is Newsom always boasting? Walters cites authoritative reports that the state is an extended slowdown and that outside of government and health care, the state has added no jobs in a year and a half.

California’s unemployment rate is one of the highest in the nation standing at near 5.4%.

While Newsom argues that California produces 13.9% of the country’s manufacturing, the state’s own Employment Development Department reported that California accounted for roughly one-third (31 percent) of the nation’s manufacturing GDP in 2013.

Affordability, the key political term of the moment, did not make Newsom’s list. The largest drivers of affordability are housing costs, energy costs, and food costs. California has nothing to brag about in those categories.

With the top rates for electricity 54% above the national average and gasoline running about $1.50 per gallon above national average it’s expensive to live here, and voters around the country know it. The Public Policy Institute of California reported earlier this year, “Food is the third largest expense for the average household, and Californians spend more on weekly groceries than nearly every other state.”

All these affordability issues most often lead back to the way California is governed with regulations and taxes.

Many business rankings place California at or near the bottom of a good place to do business. High profile companies have fled the state. The Tax Foundation ranks California 48^th in their state tax competitive index with the rates in many of the major tax categories at or near the top.

While Newsom points to an increase in population in the last couple of years there is no doubt people fled California recently, many upset with taxes, the difficulty to do business and the one-party government rule. This image has taken hold nationally.

Newsom may boast of more scientists and engineers but in a state of nearly 40-million people that is not surprising. California’s population has more of many things because of its sheer size including cars, homes and billionaires, one category the governor didn’t mention that you would think he would boast about.

And of course, no decent consultant will let a campaign go by against a California candidate without mentioning the disaster of the high-speed rail, promised to cost $33 billion and open in 2020 to run from Los Angeles to San Fransisco. The cost is estimated now to be four times as high, no segment of the rail is open yet, and the first sector alone in the Central Valley will cost more than the original projected cost for the whole project. But Newsom just led the fight to give the rail a billion dollars a year for two more decades.

Anything can happen in the next few years before the election. But as of now, despite Newsom best efforts, California national reputation appears to be an albatross around his neck.

That’s because as Newsom begins his campaign for the presidency it won’t just be Republicans or conservatives who will attack California’s weaknesses. Democrats who vie for the party’s presidential nomination will take shots at the conditions in California and that will reinforce a negative image of California in the minds of national voters.

As to Newsom’s boast that the future happens here first, if the negative image of California takes hold, that is a scary prospect for voters across the country.