Sen. Megan Dahle (R-Bieber) released the following statement in response to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “State of the State” address to the Legislature this morning:
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Gavin Newsom is always an enthusiastic cheerleader for his own policies and the great things happening in the Golden State.
When you check the scoreboard of his administration, the rah-rah is hollow.
In his final “State of the State” message, delivered to the Legislature this morning, the governor claimed credit for tremendous progress over the past seven years under his administration. Ordinary working Californians must be wondering what he’s talking about.
Californians pay electric rates double the national average. When they fuel up their car, the costs is half again higher than the national average – and the gap has risen to the highest on record under Newsom’s governorship. When running for governor he promised to unlock home building to ease the state’s dire housing shortage. The result? Building permits are basically unchanged, the homeownership rate is flat, and young families remain utterly priced out of a broken housing market.
The governor bragged about our growing population – but in the past five years, according to the administration’s own estimates – 1.25 million Californians have left for other states, over and above newcomers who arrived from within the country. While immigrants still come to test their luck, for all too many Californians already here, the math of a middle-class lifestyle just doesn’t add up.
Where there is genuinely positive news – state revenues that exceed earlier forecasts and a better than expected budget that will help school funding – the major driver is a stock-market and artificial-intelligence boom that is succeeding despite the state, not because of it. I fully support the investment in our schools, in our children’s success, that this rebound will allow.
I appreciate that the governor highlighted CEQA streamlining, which I have supported in the Legislature, and how it is helping finally move Sites Reservoir and other projects forward. I truly hope we can break ground on Sites while he is still governor.
The progress we are seeing there is happening because Sacramento realized the solution to our problems can just be to get the government out of the way – instead of more state regulations and more subsidies. I am committed to working with anyone in the Legislature or the administration who truly wants to support working Californians in a way that will produce real results.