By Tim Redmond
It’s taken me a few days to find the time to listen to the whole thing, but the Calitics interview with Gavin Newsom is interesting — for what he says and for what he doesn’t.
Most of the time, Newsom talks in sound bites and platitudes, much as you would expect from a candidate for governor. (“We need order of magnitude change, I’m not running to fail more efficiently.”)
And he says, toward the end of the interview, that he supports and oil severance tax and a $1.50 a pack cigarette tax to fund education. He also says that California should tax services and lower the overall sales tax rate. And like many Democrats, he would restore the vehicle license fee that Gov. Schwarzenegger cut. Which all makes perfect sense.
But on the larger issue about revenue and services, he’s awfully squirrelly. He talks about how San Francisco funds universal health care and universal preschool — “we value these programs by funding them, finding the resources and funding them.” But then talks about “reform” — redirecting money from one program to another. (For example, right now he’s redirecting money away from front-line health-care workers).
And he proclaims:
“Let’s not accept the parameters that we have to tax or cut.”
Actually, that’s bullshit. Because in the end, you can find some waste and redirect it (we could, for example, release all drug offenders from prison and save a few billion dollars), but it’s almost impossible politically to do anything that saves that kind of money. The waste and redirection gets you pennies. In the end, the state’s actual spending hasn’t even kept up with population growth — and that’s at a time when federal services have been cut and state and local government has had to take up the slack.
So actually, Mr. Mayor, you DO have to tax or cut. And what I haven’t heard him say yet is exactly how he’s going to make those decisions.
I also really like this line: “My number on priority in San Francisco has been job creation.” This from a mayor who has been responsible for about 1,000 layoffs of public-sector workers. Guess those jobs don’t count.