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🕒 7.5 min read
A Speech That Asked Californians to Suspend Disbelief
If a State of the State address is meant to be honest with the public, yesterday’s speech instead asked Californians to suspend disbelief. Governor Gavin Newsom gave a confident, scripted story of progress that didn’t match the daily reality for people living in one of the country’s most expensive states.
The speech relied more on bold statements than real examples. Success was claimed, not proven. Critics were brushed off as pessimists stuck in the past. It sounded less like a plan for California and more like a tryout for a national audience, far from the state’s actual budgets and bills.
That gap is important because Californians don’t feel policy as words—they feel it in their wallets.
High-Speed Rail and the Art of Selective Storytelling
The gap was especially clear in how the governor talked about high-speed rail. Again, he called the project visionary, showing ambition and long-term thinking. But he left out what Californians have had to ignore for years: rising costs, missed deadlines, and a growing gap between what was promised and what the project can actually deliver soon.
He didn’t mention the repeated warnings about mismanagement or the cost of spending billions on a project that still hasn’t delivered what voters expected.
High-speed rail served as a metaphor for the entire speech. Celebrate the aspiration. Avoid the accounting.
Climate Policy Without a Cost Ledger
The governor focused a lot on climate policy, describing California’s rules as both morally important and good for the economy. He said the state was leading on the environment while keeping things affordable.
But he left out the bigger picturem and, well, he lied.
California makes up less than one percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Even big cuts here barely affect global carbon levels, especially since emissions are rising elsewhere. This doesn’t mean Californians should not be environmentally conscious, but leaders should be honest about what these extreme policies do, both in their extreme financial impacts and in their diminutive actual impact on planetwide carbon emissions.
That honesty was absent.
Conveniently absent from his speech… The billions of dollars Californians pay, both directly and indirectly, to keep these rules in place. Costs from fuel standards, energy rules, compliance, utility fees, housing, and transportation all affect residents, regardless of their views on the policies.
Saying these policies make things more affordable, without addressing the real costs, is hard to believe.
Spending Grows, Accountability Shrinks
Yesterday’s speech also introduced the governor’s final proposed budget, along with a surprising statistic that went unchallenged. Since Newsom became governor, state general fund spending has increased significantly. This isn’t just slow growth—it’s a major expansion of government.
Senate Republican Leader Brian Jones summarized the concern succinctly. “This is more of the same from a lame-duck governor content on leaving the rest of us to pick up the financial pieces when he leaves office,” Jones said. “This is a man who has demonstrated recklessness and irresponsibility in every year in his budgeting practices.”
Record spending was shown as a sign of success. But spending is just a starting point, not a result. Californians got little proof that life is now more affordable, stable, or predictable.
A Budget That Doubles Down on Fantasy
If yesterday’s speech gave a fictional view of California, this morning’s state budget release made it even clearer. The governor wasn’t there as his team presented the spending plan, leaving staff to defend claims that the deficit is only $3 billion.
That number doesn’t match what’s really happening.
The independent Legislative Analyst’s Office says the shortfall is about six times higher at $18 billion, depending on the details, and expects even bigger deficits after Newsom leaves office. This is textbook Newsom. The sky is pink because I say it is.
Republican State Senator Tony Strickland put it plainly. “California does not have a revenue problem; it has a wasteful spending problem. Even with increased revenues from the AI sector, it is reckless to rely on volatile growth as a long-term solution.”
Strickland goes on to say, “This marks the fourth consecutive year of budget deficits. Structural imbalances could push the gap to $35 billion annually by 2027–28, driven by rising program costs and slower revenue growth, as Californians are leaving the state due to its high cost of living. Ignoring these warning signs will only make the problem worse.”
The governor’s budget presentation didn’t mention any of those warnings.
The Lowest Point Of The Speech
The speech also included a moment that took attention away from policy. The governor used the recent death of Congressman Doug LaMalfa to make a political dig at President Trump. It wasn’t needed and made the moment feel less respectful.
He did this in front of an audience, many of whom had close, personal relationships with the Congressman, who was a long-time state legislator before heading to Washington, D.C.
Using a colleague’s death for a political point showed how much the speech had become a performance. And a callous decision to make performance the priority, no matter what.
So, Does It Matter?
This all matters because Californians see a governor who knows he’s leaving behind budget deficits, rising costs, and policy failures, but has decided it’s no longer his job to fix them.
Instead of using his last State of the State address and budget proposal to be honest or make changes, he did what he’s done before: skipped the tough topics, said what he wanted, and relied on a mostly friendly California press that rarely challenged him.
Governor Newsom is now focused on his next goal: running for president. These moments should have been a chance to face what went wrong during his time in office. Instead, they became branding exercises that pretended everything was fine. I guess it’s time to study the dozen or more candidates looking to replace Newsom next year. Because no one is going to take the job of governing California seriously until the winner of that race is sworn into office.
My video commentary (which is worth seeing!) is below…...

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