Sen. Brian Jones: Newsom Has a Fraud Problem

Voters Should Be Alert as Gavin Newsom Prepares for '28 Run

California can't seem to stop going viral for all the wrong reasons.

Its taxpayer-funded, high-profile "future of everything" projects have become recurring exhibits in government excess and progressive mismanagement; each one offering a clearer glimpse into the negligence, waste, and fraud behind Newsom's state operations.

Consider the $114 million wildlife crossing in Los Angeles County, already over budget, behind schedule, and still not connecting anything.

 

 Sen. Brian Jones

Or the high-speed rail project, pitched to voters a decade ago as a $33 billion feat of modern infrastructure innovation, now  projected to exceed $126 billion without a single track laid.

Now, Newsom is under fire for directing up to $19 million more in taxpayer funds to a global public relations firm tasked with managing the fallout from these mismanaged projects and other "negative narratives," as he calls them, ahead of his anticipated 2028 presidential run.

 

Redirecting those funds to shovel-ready – and technically feasible – projects like the LOSSAN Rail or Sites reservoir projects would put those funds to better use.

But that would require a different governing instinct – one that put California's needs ahead of headlines and public relations wins.

Since taking office in 2019, Gavin Newsom has presided over some of the highest taxes –
including on income, business, and fuel – in the country while spending more than $300 billion annually – yet the state's condition makes clear those resources are not delivering the basic services Californians are told they’re paying for.

So where, exactly, is all that money going, if not just to public relations cleanup crews?

Unfortunately, we now have some idea.

Earlier this month, one watchdog analysis – using the state's own public data – estimated roughly $425 billion had been lost to waste, fraud, and abuse over the past five years.

That’s about $22,000 per taxpayer.

The unemployment insurance system is a prime example.

Newsom's pandemic-era changes left it alarmingly easy to exploit and hundreds of millions were sent to individuals using stolen identities, including neo-Nazi organized fraud rings and even prison inmates – among them at least 133 on death row.

The state's Medi-Cal spending, meanwhile, has doubled from $93 billion to nearly $200 billion since 2019.

A meaningful share of that bump appears to have gone – in addition to $12 billion to
illegal immigrant healthcare – fraudsters and organized crime rings.

Since 2019, roughly $146 billion has been reported lost across the system.

The U.S. Department of Justice has begun making arrests in Los Angeles to crack down on "sham" hospice operations, where healthy individuals were allegedly paid monthly kickbacks to pose as terminal patients, draining taxpayer funds "to finance luxury lifestyles and private real estate."

We now know – no thanks to California officials, but to investigative journalism by CBS News – that lax hospice oversight, compounded by Newsom's policy changes, allowed at least 700 hospices in Los Angeles County alone to bill taxpayers billions in fake charges.

The same pattern showed up in COVID-19-era small business loans, where more than 111,000 borrowers are now under suspension by federal authorities for taking advantage of the state's unaccountable system.

We see it again in the state's homeless-industrial complex, where more than $30 billion of taxpayer funds has been spent since 2019, yet the crisis has only worsened, with tent cities taking over once-thriving communities.

Much of that money has since surfaced in prosecutions involving funds diverted for personal use and the state's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office has said there's no way to track where the rest of it went.

And through it all, Newsom has not moved to restore the safeguards his administration removed, nor has he supported serious efforts to strengthen fraud enforcement.

What's worse, the 2028 hopeful wants to spread his approach to the rest of the country.
The Golden State, in his telling, is a "beacon," an "operational model," and a "policy blueprint for others to follow."

Never mind that hardworking families are paying some of the highest costs in the country for a government that struggles to account for its own spending, watching their tax dollars flow to criminal organizations, failed projects, and mismanaged programs while their quality of life erodes day-by-day.

This is no longer something that can be explained away, even with expensive public relations teams or snarky, taxpayer-funded social media hacks.

It's Newsom's guiding governing model and it has been since his first foray into public office. Failure upon failure disguised by window dressings as victory and success.

The rest of the country should pay attention, because they will soon be asked to adopt it.

Brian Jones is the Senate Republican Leader in California