Written by Will Seykora
Gavin Newsom has officially decided that our money is his to spend, and what is he spending it on? Roads? No. Public transport? Not even close. Fixing our broken unemployment system? Wrong again.
Instead, Governor Newsom has chosen to send $600 checks to every Californian making under $75,000 per year. Including illegal immigrants. He also proposed $5 billion in renters assistance and another $2 billion for those who have fallen behind on their utility bills. These massive proposals come in response to a $75.7 billion state budget surplus. Which, if you do the math still won’t be enough to make up for Newsoms planned $100 billion economic stimulus plan.
So how does he plan on getting the rest of the money? Through taxes, of course. Newsom’s response to any new spending is taxes as we can tell from the fact that California still has the highest income tax rates in the country. In fact, taxes paid by the top 1% of Californias’ earners have accounted for nearly half of all income tax revenue in some years. So why does Newsom want to push those who help the most out of California? People like Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, and Elon Musk (literally one of the richest men on Earth) all left California blaming high taxes.
This year is no exception to higher taxes. Assembly Bill 1253 would raise the top tax rate to 14.3% for those making over $1 million, 16.3% for over $2 million, and 16.8% for anything over $5 million. This Bill has directly influenced Newsom’s proposed budget as we see a $5 billion increase in expected revenue from personal income tax.
Where is the money going? Well if you’re hoping it’ll go towards infrastructure or towards schools you’re only going to be partially pleased with the budget. This year’s budget sets a record for the highest funding ever for K-14 schools, around $90 billion total with $4.6 billion of that going towards afterschool and summer programs.
This budget also plans on tackling “Climate Change Action” and “Environmental Justice” adding up to $2.8 billion and another proposed $122.2 billion for Medi-Cal.
Gavin Newsom has yet again come to the conclusion that money earned by Californians should belong to the state. Record high taxes, a failing unemployment system, a failing state-run health care system, and no plans for fixing any of these issues. He somehow wonders why he is being recalled. This budget will be voted upon by the state Legislature by June 15th, however, with Republicans only making up 8 of 31 Assemblymembers on the Assembly Budget Committee, there is likely going to be little dispute on passing the budget.
Photo via Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press
