SACRAMENTO– Assemblyman James Gallagher (R-Yuba City) today issued the following statement in response to the release of Governor Gavin Newsom’s 2022-2023 state budget:
“Governor Newsom’s budget, in typical fashion, throws more taxpayer money at issues without substantive reforms or appropriate oversight.
A prime example of this is his $255 million proposal for law enforcement grants to deter retail theft while not reforming soft on crime policies like Proposition 47 that would actually disincentivize crime. More money will make zero difference if criminals are arrested and immediately released.
Similarly, the Governor identified homelessness as an ‘existential threat’, and we continue pouring billions of dollars to address this problem while not changing the policies that increase the cost of housing and that prevent mentally ill individuals from getting the treatment they need.
While I appreciate the continued investments in wildfire prevention, we need to speed up the scale and pace of treatment to meet the state goal of treating 500,000 acres per year. Doing this requires substantive reforms like streamlining CEQA and investing in facilities, like biomass, to ensure processing capacity. Reforestation without actually doing the work of removing dead and dying trees in the burn scars just creates fuel for the next fire. We must promote policies that remove barriers for both the state and private landowners to do this work.
This Governor continues to define success on how much we are spending, instead of the results we are actually achieving.”