Last month, I wrote about the unique opportunity Governor Newsom has with his next budget to “reinvent government” as he called for in his 2014 book, Citizenville. Next week we will learn if he plans to do so.
It would represent a big turnaround. To date, Mr. Newsom has taken the conventional path to political power in California that runs through public employee unions whose objectives are to boost the number and cost of government employees without regard to productivity or customer service, which conflict with the innovation, entrepreneurship and reduced bureaucracies that Mr. Newsom calls for in his book. So, to reinvent the government, Mr. Newsom would have to confront his long-time patrons. That would take guts but if he did, he would be a hero to residents, students and taxpayers desperate for high value public schools and other services and would emulate the example set by Lyndon Johnson, whose path to power ran through segregationists until he assembled enough political power to embrace civil rights legislation.
The reinvention couldn’t happen soon enough. Since taking office, Mr. Newsom has been more supportive of public employee unions than any governor since Gray Davis, adding thousands of employees, awarding multiple salary increases and a new retirement benefit, signing a law establishing a new public employee union, avoiding issues that would risk their opposition, and taking their side over public school families during the pandemic. The financial toll has been huge (this year the state is directly spending $42 billion on compensation and benefits for 253,000 Executive Branch employees and indirectly spending more through public schools and other subsidiaries the state funds), sometimes with embarrassing consequences for a self-proclaimed progressive state (eg, the 2023 General Fund allocates as much to prison employee salaries and benefits as to UC and CSU combined and twice Texas’s total prison spending), and extends to subsidiaries regulated by the governor and legislature (eg, the failure to embrace Obamacare, Medicare and employer-provided care for retired employees has contributed to some public schools running short of resources). So has the emotional toll on public school families kept out of classrooms for too long during the pandemic and provided with too few alternatives to poor performing schools, both a function of monopolization of public schools by public employee unions.
I take Mr. Newsom at his word that he really does want a state government that delivers for citizens, provided that wouldn’t mean the end of his political career. While a reinvention of government would surely forfeit him the support of public employee unions in the race for president, national voters would see a gutsy politician who took on the most powerful interests in his state in order to deliver big for his citizens. Also, it’s not something he could do as president since, in our federalist system, it is state governments that provide the vast majority of services to citizens. Now is his chance.
Next week Mr. Newsom will present his proposed budget for 2024-25, including how he proposes to close a deficit. Most observers expect a conventional approach from a conventional politician but the deficit offers an opportunity to disrupt the status quo. Will we see the Citizenville Act of 2024? My fingers are crossed.
