On Monday, California officially entered the era of big ideas.
“We will be bold,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in his inaugural speech. “We will aim high and we will work like hell to get there.”
Holding out California as a contrast to the values of the Trump administration, Newsom vowed that his state will show the nation how to be big-hearted and fair-minded. “Now more than ever America needs California,” he said.
The question is how he will pay for it.
As Newsom moves to carry out his vision, he would serve state residents well, and provide a model for the nation, by also exercising fiscal discipline. For California cannot be a leader if it continues burying itself with debt to serve the needy just as the president has fattened the national debt to provide tax breaks for the wealthy.
Neither is fair to the next generation — including Newsom’s 2-year-old son, Dutch, the cute kid with the pacifier who upstaged his dad at the inaugural.
Newsom seems to get that. “We will be prudent stewards of taxpayer dollars,” pay down debt, meet future obligation and build the largest fiscal reserve of any state, he vowed. At the same time he promised to “ensure a decent standard of living for all.”
Those two goals of fiscal prudence and social responsibility need not be incompatible.
Newsom’s predecessor, Jerry Brown, was lauded for his fiscal prudence. But during Brown’s tenure, in one of the longest-running economic expansions in the nation’s history, as California lawmakers rapidly increased spending on new programs, they ignored the state’s huge and mounting retirement debt.
It’s uncertain whether Newsom will carry out his bold vision without pushing more costs onto future generations — whether he is willing to make cuts or reform the state tax system in order to provide funds for new expenditures.
His vision is indeed bold. The new governor promised “a Marshall Plan for affordable housing” and to elevate the fight against homelessness to a statewide mission. And he said all Californians should have access to quality, affordable health care, to great schools for their children and to college without big debt.
Californians live in uneasy times despite the state’s booming economy, Newsom noted, checking off the severe challenges of the state’s housing shortage, wealth inequality, homelessness, academic achievement gap, and chronic hunger of children living in our midst.
“There is a disquieting sense that things are not as predictable as they once were, that we must now run faster just to stay in place,” he said.
He’s right.
The inaugural speech Tuesday was the place for his goals and big ideas; the budget unveiling on Thursday is where we find out how the new governor plans to fund it. Borrowing is not the answer.
