Politics
Newsom promised to address California’s high gas costs. But the politics are tricky
Simply how Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to make good on his promise this week to place cash “again within the pockets” of Californians stung by the sharp rise in fuel costs stays murky, however suspending or decreasing the state’s highest-in-the-nation fuel tax seems much less and fewer possible.
The hesitation to tinker with California’s steep gasoline excise tax of 51 cents per gallon — even throughout an election 12 months by which voters are feeling the pinch on the pump as costs proceed to skyrocket amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — demonstrates simply how politically delicate the difficulty stays in a state recognized for its ribbons of freeways and worship of the auto.
Although Newsom in his January finances proposal referred to as for canceling a rise in California’s fuel tax scheduled for July, his administration can also be contemplating options that might present direct funds to residents.
The governor’s senior communications advisor, Anthony York, mentioned on Thursday that the administration is worried {that a} lower within the state fuel tax may not get handed alongside to drivers on the pump. The governor desires to make sure that any reduction goes to Californians and is “not pocketed by the oil firms,” York mentioned.
After Newsom vowed in his State of the State speech Tuesday to work with legislative leaders to supply California’s monetary reduction “to deal with rising fuel prices,” senior advisor Dee Dee Myers additionally instructed reporters the rebates have been prone to be despatched to Californians with automobiles and will value the state billions of {dollars}. Administration officers have since backtracked on that, saying it was certainly one of a number of choices being explored by the governor.
Meeting Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) and Senate President Professional Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) already signaled their opposition to decreasing the fuel tax, even briefly, saying it could not present substantial help and will scale back funding for vital street and bridge repairs statewide. They favor basic tax reduction to assist Californians fighting rising prices, not just for fuel however meals, hire and different life necessities.
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Republicans are utilizing the excessive fuel costs to their political benefit.
Meeting Republican Chief James Gallagher of Yuba Metropolis has joined with different GOP lawmakers in calling for suspending all state fuel taxes for six months, saying the state can afford to backfill funds for vital transportation tasks with a portion of a large state finances surplus that the Newsom administration estimates to be greater than $45 billion.
“You’re telling me we will’t give this reduction to shoppers. One of many greatest issues that they’re dealing with proper now’s the excessive value of dwelling, together with fuel, utility payments which are getting larger, rents, the price of housing,” Gallagher mentioned after listening to Newsom’s speech in Sacramento on Tuesday. “One thing’s incorrect. We’re not doing the issues that we have to do to make sure that folks’s prices are lowered.”
Gallagher mentioned it could present instantaneous reduction to Californians, significantly lower-income residents who usually tend to have lengthy commutes to work.
In 2017, the Democratic-controlled Legislature handed Senate Invoice 1, which then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed into legislation, levying the state’s first fuel tax enhance in 23 years to repair California’s roads and bridges in disrepair — 12 cents per gallon. Underneath the legislation, the tax will increase every year on July 1 primarily based on the expansion within the California Client Value Index.
Final July, the tax elevated from 50.5 cents per gallon to 51.1 cents per gallon. This upcoming July, it’s scheduled to extend to 53.9 cents per gallon, in line with the state Division of Finance. California’s complete state taxes and different fees on gasoline are the best within the nation, in line with the Tax Basis, a conservative-leaning assume tank primarily based in Washington.
The state expects SB 1 to generate greater than $5 billion yearly in the course of the first decade of its implementation. Based on the Legislative Analyst’s Workplace, the state’s gas taxes have been anticipated to boost $8.8 billion within the 2021-2022 fiscal 12 months.
Nonetheless, state officers say that may fall far wanting the quantity wanted to deal with shortcomings within the transportation system. The California Division of Transportation estimates it should want $122.9 billion over 10 years to keep up present roads and bridges, due partly to growing prices and the age of the infrastructure. The funding will handle about 45% of the full “recognized wants,” the company wrote in a 2021 report despatched to the California Transportation Fee.
A lot of the state fuel tax income helps state freeway upkeep, rehabilitation and enhancements, and practically one-third goes on to cities and counties.
The 2017 fuel tax enhance handed after a fierce debate within the Legislature, squeaking by in each the Meeting and Senate with the minimal votes required in each homes. Political turbulence adopted shut behind.
In 2018, Republicans launched a profitable recall effort in opposition to Orange County Democratic state Sen. Josh Newman, fueled by his vote in favor of the fuel tax. Newman reclaimed his seat in 2020.
That very same 12 months, California voters rejected a statewide poll measure, Proposition 6, to repeal the fuel tax enhance. The measure confronted a barrage of opposition from commerce unions, contractors, Democratic leaders and the California Chamber of Commerce, which mentioned it “makes our bridges and roads much less protected and jeopardizes public security.”
“For many years, the fuel tax was a poisonous political soccer,” mentioned state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco). “We have to simply go away the fuel tax alone and concentrate on different types of tax rebates or different helps for working households. We have now the instruments to try this.”
California Transportation Fee member Michele Martinez, who served for 12 years on the Santa Ana Metropolis Council, mentioned the state’s fuel tax system is worthy of evaluation, particularly as the recognition of electrical automobiles grows. Electrical automotive homeowners don’t pay fuel taxes however nonetheless drive on the identical roads and bridges maintained by those that should pay the taxes, she mentioned.
“I perceive that decrease gas costs will assist many Californians who can’t afford to drive electrical automobiles on the freeway,” Martinez mentioned. “I paid $8.95 to cost my electrical automotive at 90%. How is that this honest? That is the difficulty with the present fuel tax system.”
Republican political marketing consultant Dave Gilliard, who labored with proponents of Proposition 6, mentioned occasions have modified. When the tax repeal failed, the worth of a gallon of fuel was two {dollars} cheaper than it’s right now, and polls present that the rising value of dwelling in California — pushed partly by fuel costs — has change into a serious concern amongst Californians. He argued that the fuel tax is regressive since all Californians pay the identical quantity on the pump, no matter revenue, which hits tougher amongst lower-income Californians.
“In case you lower the fuel tax, all people advantages. Individuals who commute, individuals who don’t commute,” Gilliard mentioned. “The simplest method to decrease the price of dwelling proper now, and there’s not an entire lot they’ll do, however one factor they’ll do in a single day is slash the fuel tax.”
Gilliard additionally mentioned that voters are usually not prone to help any plan by the governor and Democratic legislative management to supply tax rebates solely to sure Californians, and never all of these affected by the excessive fuel costs. He particularly pointed to the “Golden State Stimulus,” which despatched out $600 checks to Californians who earned as much as $75,000 a 12 months — costing a complete of $11.8 billion.
Newsom has referred to as it the “largest state tax rebate in American historical past.” However Gilliard argued that it wasn’t a rebate, since funds weren’t despatched to each Californian who paid state taxes.
“Lots of Republicans and lots of people are skeptical of the governor’s plan, that it’ll find yourself turning into some type of revenue redistribution plan and it’ll not go to all people,” Gilliard mentioned.
Occasions workers author Taryn Luna contributed to this report.
Within minutes on Wednesday morning, San Francisco got a new mayor — and a new plan for an emergency declaration intended to combat the fentanyl scourge that has killed thousands of people in the city over the past five years and has turned some neighborhoods into sidewalk drug markets.
Daniel Lurie, a Democrat, was sworn into office outside the gold-domed City Hall and began to detail his campaign promises about fighting the city’s drug crisis, which has claimed more lives in the city since 2020 than have Covid-19, car crashes and homicides combined. Mr. Lurie said that he had told his police and sheriff’s departments to redirect their personnel — moving from a temporary, sporadic effort to break up drug markets to a permanent, 24/7 operation.
He vowed that by this spring, police officers would have somewhere new to take people picked up for using drugs or for acting erratically in public — not just a jail or a hospital emergency room. A crisis center in the Tenderloin neighborhood will be staffed with health workers who can guide those who need treatment.
“Widespread drug dealing, public drug use and constantly seeing people in crisis has robbed us of our sense of decency and security,” Mr. Lurie said from an outdoor stage under sunny blue skies. “I refuse to believe that this is who we are.”
His declaration of a fentanyl emergency, which he promised after winning the hotly contested mayor’s race in November, consists of a package of ordinances that will speed its way to the Board of Supervisors, akin to a City Council, on Tuesday for what is expected to be swift approval.
The declaration would streamline the hiring of new city workers and the building of homeless and drug treatment facilities. A new ordinance will also allow the city to accept private donations to help fund Mr. Lurie’s promised 1,500 new shelter beds within six months.
Mr. Lurie, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune and the founder of an antipoverty nonprofit, said that fixing the city’s drug problems would be the only way to ensure that San Francisco itself makes a full recovery. Doing so, he argued, would be central to luring back office workers to downtown, tourists to hotels and small business owners to vacant shops.
“Recovery is possible, but it needs to be more than a possibility in San Francisco,” he said. “It must be our mission.”
Many of the proposals are familiar, and the packed crowd at the inauguration was full of former mayors and other city officials who were unable to make similar ideas a reality. Not in a city with a police department that city leaders say needs hundreds more officers; with a notorious bureaucracy that bogs down many city projects; and with lowered tax revenue that translates to a budget deficit approaching $1 billion over the next two years.
And then there is Mr. Lurie’s total lack of experience in government. The job of mayor is his first elected position.
Still, there was an aura of hope, as a who’s who of San Francisco filled the plaza. Paul Pelosi walked slowly to his seat with the help of a purple cane, more than two years after being bludgeoned with a hammer by an intruder looking for his wife, Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker.
California’s first lady, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, was there, too, though her husband, Gov. Gavin Newsom, could not attend because of the wildfires ravaging Los Angeles.
Mr. Lurie, who will accept only a $1 annual salary, owns a $15.5 million vacation home in Malibu, a beach town west of Los Angeles that suffered extensive damage in the fires. When he was asked Wednesday morning whether his home was still standing, a consultant whisked him away. His wife, Becca Prowda, an aide to Governor Newsom, said the couple did not yet know the home’s fate.
Mr. Lurie’s mother, the billionaire Mimi Haas, who donated $1 million to her son’s campaign and knocked on voters’ doors on his behalf, said she was “very excited” and confident he would turn the city around. She married the late Peter Haas, Levi’s longtime chief executive, when Mr. Lurie was a child.
Golden State Warriors Coach Steve Kerr addressed the crowd, comparing Mr. Lurie to a coach who can succeed only with the help of top-notch players.
“We have been through an awful lot in recent years, and our city has taken some hits, but we are bouncing back,” Mr. Kerr told the crowd. “Just like the Warriors, we have to bring our individual talents to the table with the idea of making the whole better.”
If Mr. Lurie is the coach, it is not clear who will be City Hall’s Steph Curry. Mr. Lurie has so far hired mostly outsiders from the business world to help him run the mayor’s office. On Wednesday, he said that in terms of department heads, “you all will see a lot of change.”
President-elect Trump pointed to a strategic benefit of the one-bill approach to budget reconciliation that he’s said he prefers during a closed-door meeting with Republican senators on Wednesday evening at the Capitol.
By combining legislation relating to both the southern border crisis and taxes into one reconciliation bill, Trump suggested that one issue could potentially force some lawmakers to make a difficult decision. For example, if a Republican doesn’t support a piece of the tax component, they would also have to vote against the border provisions because they are in one measure.
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Trump explained a strategic component to his one-bill reconciliation approach. (Getty Images)
With portions of Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expiring this year, the party is looking to act quickly. But the tax debate in 2025 is expected to be more divided among Republicans than that regarding the border. In particular, there is some disagreement in the party on state and local tax (SALT) deductions, which can benefit some states more than others and have been hit by some Republicans as inefficient.
“If somebody, for example, in the House is balking because there’s not SALT in the tax agreement or some other provision they want, if that also means they’d be holding out and voting against the border, it might make it harder for them to do so,” Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., told Fox News Digital. “That’s a very valid point.”
While SALT was not posed as an example of this by Trump himself, it was mentioned by a GOP senator in a side conversation among other attendees as they went over the advantages of a one-bill approach, Hoeven said.
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Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., speaks May 4, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Hoeven faces a defector from his own party and a lightly funded Democrat on Tuesday, Nov. 8, in his race for a third U.S. Senate term from North Dakota. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, File)
A source familiar told Fox News that Republicans are preparing to go with Trump’s one-bill preference, but they are also keeping the potential for two bills, one on the border and another to address taxes, in their back pocket in the case of any significant obstacles.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told Trump that if one bill is what he wanted, that is what they are going to try first, the source said.
A number of senators have their own preferences for two separate reconciliation bills instead, and some made their cases to Trump during the meeting. However, the conference is set to move forward with Trump’s one-bill approach.
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Thune was “adamant” about supporting Trump’s agenda as leader, one senator said. (Reuters)
Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal came up during the discussion following Trump’s remarks about each. Trump has recently said he wants U.S. to take back control of critical trade medium the Panama Canal, while also expressing interest in making Greenland and Canada part of the U.S.
Sources familiar told Fox News that Trump brought these up himself during the meeting, telling senators at one point that these countries “were screwing with” the U.S.
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Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks with media outside Rideau Cottage on Monday, Jan. 6, in Ottawa. (AP/Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
Several GOP senators took the opportunity to tell Trump that his comments on Canada were “transformative,” the sources said.
The senators believe his approach to Canada is already managing to change the country’s “behavior” and could have even contributed to the recent resignation of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the sources added.
SAN FRANCISCO — Four hours before he took the oath of office Wednesday to become San Francisco’s 46th mayor, Daniel Lurie started his day walking through the bleak confines of the Tenderloin district with the city police chief and passing out coffee to people at a homeless community center.
It was a deliberately symbolic move by Lurie, a nonprofit executive and heir to the Levi Strauss family fortune, who won office in November largely by appealing to disillusioned voters weary of the public drug use, brazen retail theft and sprawling homelessness that during the pandemic became commonplace in the Tenderloin and spilled into the downtown financial district.
Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie and his wife, Becca Prowda, take part in Wednesday’s inaugural festivities.
(Gabrielle Lurie / San Francisco Chronicle)
In his inaugural speech shortly before noon in front of San Francisco City Hall, Lurie pledged to crack down on the street anarchy that has plagued some areas of the city in recent years, feeding a “doom loop” scenario endorsed by conservative pundits.
“This is where our comeback begins,” Lurie said to a crowd of thousands that included his wife, Becca Prowda, daughter Taya, 13, and son Sawyer, 10, along with outgoing Mayor London Breed and a host of local and statewide political figures.
“I’m asking all of you, every single one of you, to join me in reclaiming our place as the greatest city in the world with a new era of accountability, service and change,” Lurie said.
Daniel Lurie is sworn in as San Francisco’s 46th mayor.
(Gabrielle Lurie / San Francisco Chronicle)
Lurie, a moderate Democrat who had never held elected office, entered the mayoral race as an underdog against Breed and three other City Hall veterans. In an election seen as a referendum on the city’s post-pandemic struggles with homelessness and street crime, Lurie pitched himself as a change agent who could lead San Francisco into an era of recovery.
His campaign gained momentum as he promised to end open-air drug markets and arrest fentanyl dealers, push homeless people into drug and mental health treatment and reinvigorate a downtown economy drained by the exodus of tech workers after COVID-19 shutdowns made remote work an easy option.
Lurie was able to spread his message broadly by drawing on personal wealth. He funneled nearly $9 million of his own money into his campaign, while his mother, Miriam Haas, widow of deceased Levi’s executive and heir Peter Haas, contributed an additional $1 million to an independent expenditure committee backing his election.
Lurie’s inaugural speech, though light on policy details, offered a glimpse into how he planned to accomplish the bold goals he laid out on the campaign trail.
“San Francisco has long been known for its values of tolerance and inclusion, but nothing about those values instructs us to allow nearly 8,000 people to experience homelessness in our city,” he said. “Widespread drug-dealing, public drug use and constantly seeing people in crisis has robbed us of our sense of decency and security.”
At the top of his to-do list: introducing a package of ordinances declaring a fentanyl state of emergency. Lurie said he would ask the Board of Supervisors, an 11-member body that acts as the legislative branch for the city and county, to quickly approve the ordinances, directed at curbing use of the deadly opioid and allowing the city to “bypass the bureaucratic hurdles standing in the way of tackling this crisis.”
The board gained five new members in the November election, a turnover expected to bring a more moderate tone to a board that for years was seen as ultra-liberal and often tussled with Breed — also a moderate — over tough-on-crime policy proposals.
Lurie said he would work to embed more behavioral health specialists in first-responder units to address the overlapping crises of homelessness, addiction and untreated mental illness, and announced plans to open a 24/7 center as an alternative to jail for police to bring people in need of treatment and other services.
He also said he wants to expand a city program that provides funding and assistance for bus tickets and other transportation to send homeless people who aren’t from San Francisco back to their home communities.
And in the face of a projected $876-million budget deficit, Lurie promised “zero cuts” to sworn police officers, 911 operators, EMTs, firefighters and nurses on the front lines of public health emergencies.
San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said he was encouraged by Lurie’s plans and his recognition of the need for “around-the-clock resources” not just for police, but also for city workers across departments working to solve San Francisco’s public safety and health challenges.
“The Police Department is 24/7 … but a lot of the departments that we rely upon to help solve some of these problems aren’t 24/7,” he said. “It’s not all about enforcement. It’s not all about policing.”
Scott said he would like to see Lurie continue recent efforts by Breed’s administration to more aggressively clear sprawling tent encampments that have fanned out across the city, as well as public health efforts credited for a sharp decline in drug overdose deaths in the city last year.
The chief medical examiner’s office recorded 586 fatal overdoses in San Francisco in the first 11 months of 2024 — a nearly 23% decrease, or 174 fewer deaths, compared with the first 11 months of 2023. San Francisco public health experts attributed the decline to the widespread availability of naloxone, a medication that can rapidly reverse the effects of opioid overdoses, as well as more emphasis on prescribing buprenorphine and methadone, medications that treat opioid addiction long-term.
On Tuesday, Breed’s last full day in office, her administration noted that crime rates had also fallen in 2024, with reports of car break-ins dropping 54%, property crime down 31% and violent crime down 14%.
Though San Francisco’s struggles have made national headlines in recent years, particularly in right-wing media promoted by President-elect Donald Trump, Lurie largely left national politics out of his messaging, nodding only once during his speech to the “great sense of fear and loss about the state of our country right now.”
“San Francisco must be a city where every individual feels safe, valued and empowered,” he said. “That means standing firm against discrimination and fighting for the dignity of all communities, no matter what comes our way.”
Lurie said the city is showing progress and maintained that “hope is alive and well in San Francisco.” But he warned that “lasting change doesn’t happen overnight.”
Still, “if we are consistent, if we have vision, if we aren’t afraid to make tough decisions,” he said, “San Francisco will rise to new heights.”
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