SACRAMENTO – Senator Patricia Bates (R-Laguna Niguel) issued the following statement today regarding Governor Gavin Newsom’s 2020-21 budget proposal:
“I give the Governor credit for increasing Rainy Day Fund reserves, investing in teacher training, and enhancing the state’s emergency response capabilities to deal with threats such as wildfires.
“It is also encouraging that the Governor wants to reduce the tax on new small businesses, which is telling given his very unfortunate signing of Assembly Bill 5 last year that has hurt workers who want to be independent contractors. Yet his desire to spend almost $20 million to enforce AB 5 will further hurt the very workers he claims to be helping. The better option is for him to work with the Legislature and all stakeholders this year to fix AB 5’s job-killing flaws and make the law fair for all, rather than creating winners and losers via the exemption process.
“As former Governor Jerry Brown once said, ‘everything that goes up comes down.’ I am concerned that Governor Newsom plans to increase overall spending to a historic high of $222 billion, which will increase the pressure for painful cuts or tax increases when the next recession hits. For example, his push to expand Medi-Cal to more undocumented immigrants is a false promise. Expanding such benefits would make it more difficult to provide health care services for current Medi-Cal enrollees.
“Finally, I share the Governor’s desire to address homelessness, but we cannot just spend more on the status quo and expect different results. More funding needs to be combined with more accountability and public safety. Californians want to help the homeless, but they also want to live in safe and clean communities.”
