Written by Michael Palomba
We officially have a democrat for President and Gov. Gavin Newsom is ready to take full advantage. With today being Biden’s first day in office, Newsom has already sent him a letter asking for money and power.
While the Governor mentions many of California’s ‘achievements’ and says that “every time we lacked for a partner, California stepped up anyway,” the letter still boils down to asking the federal government to fund many of California’s failures.
In terms of funding, Newsom asked the Biden-Harris administration to save the state’s infamous high-speed rail project, which is years behind schedule and billions over budget.
He also requested funding to maintain programs like Project Homekey. Project Homekey is an initiative to provide permanent homes to the homeless by putting them in hotels and motels purchased by the state. San Diego recently spent upwards of $100M to purchase 2 residence inn hotels, one in Hotel Circle and one in Kearny Mesa. While Project Homekey may be successful in getting the homeless off the streets, it uses millions of taxpayer dollars to do so. It seems that Newsom can’t get enough taxpayer funding from Californian’s to cover the massive costs, so he is looking to the new democratic administration to give him more. So while currently only Californan’s tax dollars are wasted on the project, Newsom would like taxpayers in the other 49 states to contribute as well.
Furthermore, he also requests bailouts for state and local governments, something that wasn’t included in the December stimulus bill and something Republican legislators are dead set against.
“Democrats have spent the last few months demanding bailouts for states and local governments. They claim that if you oppose spending hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to bail out states such as New York, Illinois, and California, then you support laying off teachers, health-care workers, and first responders.
Guess what? They’re lying,” reads a statement from Senator Rick Scott.
And money isn’t the only thing Newsom wants from the new administration. He also requested authority for California to set its own emissions standards. California has the most strict emissions regulations in the country. As a result, automakers must make cars to meet those standards because if they don’t, they wouldn’t be able to sell their cars in the state. This makes cars more expensive and less safe because automakers have to spend more money trying to meet extreme emissions requirements. California’s standards also result in more waste because perfectly good cars are regularly junked due to emissions issues that may be too expensive or too challenging to fix.
So to sum it all up, Newsom is already begging for more money and power while the Biden-Harris administration has, quite literally, just entered office.
Photo via the Associated Press
