After Gov. Gavin Newsom’s State of the State speech last Tuesday, questions continue about how current policies on crime, gas prices, and homelessness can change to help improve the lives of people here.
While last year Newsom gave his speech at Dodger Stadium, this year he again took his speech outside the State Capitol.
But, Senate Republican Leader Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, told the Northern California Record that he should have gone to Orange County,
“Because his vision for California and what he thinks our challenges really are represents Fantasyland; it doesn’t represent what hardworking Californians believe,” Wilk said.
In a state like California, with most residents relying on cars for transportation, the surge in gas prices has been especially devastating.
“Republicans have been calling for the complete suspension of the gas tax,” Wilk said. “In Governor Newsom’s January budget proposal, he advocated just not increasing the gas tax again on July 1, because it is scheduled to go up 3 cents, and that was rejected by the Pro Tem [Toni] Atkins and Speaker [Anthony] Rendon.”
Wilk noted that in the SOTS speech, Newsom talked about wanting to address the gas price issue.
“Tonight he talked about a tax rebate, and he wants to work with legislative leaders, so I’m assuming since Atkins and Rendon have rejected the prior proposal that he’s talking about myself and Assembly Republican Leader [James] Gallagher, and we are happy to work with him on a tax rebate for Californians,” Wilk said.
The speech as a whole barely scratched the surface on cost of living, taxes, and other issues that have been sending Californians fleeing for other states, Wilk said.
“I was frustrated with the speech – he was short on specificity,” Wilk said. “In terms of crime, he said you should feel safe. Yes, we want people to feel safe, but we also want them to be safe, and he talked about making investments there. But without changing public policy, the investment doesn’t matter, so we need to reform Prop 47, we need to reform Prop 57, to make those changes so people will be safe.”
On homelessness, the governor talked about the subject of accountability, Wilk said.
“Since he’s been in office, we’ve spent $17 billion on the homeless,” Wilk said. “Homelessness has gone up in this state 24 percent. Nearly one out of every two unsheltered people in America reside in California.”
Senate Republicans in January called for a special session on homelessness.
“Because it’s that important of an issue; he called it political theatrics,” Wilk said. “We still are calling for a special session on homelessness. We have a legislative package that comprehensively tackles homelessness.”
The state’s current methods have raised questions about what progress has been made, CalMatters reported.
“What [this governor] has been doing – he calls it ‘Housing First’. And at great cost, he’s building permanent housing and he’s putting people in there with mental health issues but no services to go with it,” Wilk said.
“We call our program ‘Housing Plus,’ so we want transitional housing, which costs way less but we want to have wrap-around services, so we can help these people get mainstreamed back into society,” Wilk said. “We have to have compassion for these people, but we also need to have compassion for the taxpayers. We have spent $17 billion of taxpayer money, and homelessness has gone up. So what he has done thus far hasn’t worked.
“And we are more than willing to work with him to implement a program that will,” Wilk said.