So it's official, as I predicted last year when we heard about the one
year delay in funding the remaining two hundred million dollars that the State of California
had pledged to the City of Fresno for downtown infrastructure development. And this is
to help develop things basically a lot of like infrastructure stuff like sewage stuff,
water drain stuff that is needed if we're going to do all the revitalization things
that we want to do in downtown Fresno, if we want to have you
know, something like ten thousand more people living in downtown and more business being
driven to downtown as a result of more people living there, and blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah, if we want to finish up all the construction
problems that are happening in the Chinatown area with you know, trying to get
ready for that high speed rail station. It's now official that Gavin Newsom has
told Jerry Dyer, hey, you know, so our original plan was to
give you this remaining two hundred million dollars. Well, we're now delaying it
by two years, not just one year, and this is a huge problem
for the city. So Dyer has some more there's some more quotes from Dire
about this topic. This delay and funding, he says, coupled with prolonged
street closures from high speed rail construction, is devastating our downtown in Chinatown revitalization
efforts. Dyer said, I was shocked to hear there would be a possibility
of a second year of it being deferred. Uh, this is a dire.
In comments to reporters from Frisno Bee, the reason is we had ramped
up our hiring for our Capital projects department, and we have a lot of
things in motion in terms of planning and pending contracts. Now those things are
possibly going to have to be put on hold, which means we can't continue
with construction. The state's budget swings up it Now, why is this happening?
Why is this happening? As I've said, California is dependent on tax
revenue from a relatively small band of taxpayers, of high net worth taxpayers.
Now I think we're getting some more details of this. George Skelton, is
a columnist for the La Times, is reporting the big change is not actually
in income tax revenue. It's coming from capital gains tax revenue. Right,
So Repetita uvonn to people. Hear the phrase capital gains taxes all the time,
maybe some of you don't understand what it is. Capital gains taxes is
the tax that you pay when you cash out on some investment. Okay,
you buy stock at this price. Let's say you buy a bunch of stock
and it's worth two hundred dollars, and then you sell when the stock is
worth two thousand dollars. You're going to pay a certain amount of tax on
that eighteen hundred dollars increase in value, and that's called your capital gains tax.
Now, generally capital gains taxes are capital gains the money you make off
an investment. Capital gains taxes are lower than most normal income taxes. So
I think it's something like fifteen percent. So whatever, fifteen percent of your
eighteen hundred dollars that you made. Again, you bought stock for two hundred
dollars, you sold it at two thousand dollars, you made eighteen hundred dollars.
You got to pay fifteen percent of that eighteen hundred in capital gains tax.
LA Times columnist George Skelton reported that in twenty twenty one, the States
rich made up twenty five percent of all personal income taxes collected in twenty twenty
one, So capital gains taxes from wealthy taxpayers made up twenty five percent of
all the revenue that the state collected. A year later, the state was
getting half that amount. So in twenty twenty one, when you know,
hey, we all were having a budget surplus, we're doing great. We
also had all this COVID money. Basically people had, people were getting lots
of investments, the people were selling their stock, realizing their capital gains,
and the state was getting a bunch of revenue from capital gains tax Twenty five
percent of all the revenue the state was getting was from capital gains taxes.
A year later, capital gains fell to just thirteen percent of what the state
was collecting, an eighteen billion dollar drop in capital gains revenues. So that's
the that the fact that the state is not collecting as much revenue. This
is at the heart of why I don't think this downtown Fresno project's ever gonna
happen. Okay, the state made this grand, grandiose pledge to die in
the city of Fresno. Coming off of again, like twenty twenty one,
twenty twenty two, we were seeing in twenty twenty one, we were seeing
this this massive budget surplus that California had, and it was in part driven
by you know, we were coming off of still a largely successful Trump economy.
Inflation hadn't really kicked in. People still felt fairly bullish on the economy,
and we had all this in spite of COVID being this massive disruption.
We had all this federal COVID money flood again. So basically the state was
in this very bullish mode and Newsome makes this, oh, yeah, we'll
give you two hundred and fifty million dollars. Sure. Well, the next
two years we see and we saw this with twenty twenty three, we saw
this with twenty twenty four. We're seeing it in twenty twenty four. We're
looking at massive budget deficits as we come grinding to the reality of what the
Biden econ looks like and what California taxpayer revenue into the state's coffers is looking
like in this era, which is not good. We're getting far less in
capital gains tax revenue, and basically the amount this is this is not complicated.
The amount of money we are getting from taxpayers paying their taxes is not
enough to cover the expense of what the state has to pay for. Slash
wants to pay for and wants get sacrificed at the altar of needs. I'm
sure Gavin Newsom would like downtown Fresno to be revitalized, but it's probably not
the thing that keeps him up at night. It's probably not the most important
thing in the world to him, and so that's gonna get sacrificed. And
now we're two years into this getting sacrificed, and I guess I'm just wondering
how many years will this get kicked down the can before? You know,
how many years is this gonna get kicked down the can before eventually either Newsome
or the next governor tells Fresno sorry, that this is just not happening.
I mean, does it need a three year delay, a four year delay,
a five year delay before we come to that conclusion. Do we need
a new governor to come in to be the bad guy or the bad girl
to say, hey, listen, I know Gavin Newsom promises to you,
but I'm the new sheriff in charge now, and look, we this is
just not gonna happen. I just don't really know what's gonna happen, what's
gonna change in our economic circumstances that that's gonna you know, rocket jet fuel
tax revenues into the state. Especially I think post COVID there were a lot
of people who left the state. And again this is this is a reality
of California politics. We are highly dependent on the tax revenues of a very
small band of people, their income tax revenue, their capital gains tax revenue.
It's really a very small crust of Californians whose tax dollars are propping up
the whole system, the whole structure of the state budget. And if they
leave, or if they're keeping their powder dry with their investments, which seems
to be what's happened. That seems to be one of the big things.
That's an eighteen billion dollar drop right there between twenty twenty one to twenty twenty
two. Was all these uber rich people just holding onto their investments. They
all cashed out. I guess in twenty twenty one now they're just holding onto
their investments. They're they're keeping their powder dry. So we're not getting their
capital gains tax revenue. So I guess I just don't know how California's economy
is going to so fundamentally change, like what is going to spur the California
economy. Honestly, the possible upturn of the economy that might come around as
a result of a Trump presidency might be the single best thing for this prospect
of downtown Presno ever getting this hundred million dollars, because again, under the
current circumstances, I just don't see this happening. And every year that goes
by, that one hundred million dollars become that that two hundred million dollars.
Rather so again, it was Newsom gave a two hundred fifty million dollar pledge.
He gave us the first fifty million. We were supposed to get two
annual installed. It was supposed to be a three year installment thing. Fifty
million one year, one hundred million the next year, one hundred million the
next year. And I think we got the first fifty million in twenty two.
We were supposed to get one hundred and twenty three. Didn't Then we
were supposed to get one hundred We didn't get that one hundred and twenty twenty
three. Oh, we're just gonna delay it by a year. Now,
We're not gonna get that first hundred million in twenty twenty four, so we're
talking twenty five and twenty six. We're gonna get that next hundred million.
By the way, the next governor's election is in twenty twenty six. By
twenty twenty seven, if we kick this can down the road one more year,
we might have another governor making the decision over whether or not we're even
gonna get the remainder of this money. And I think the city has to
ask itself, I think, and you know, presumably these are smart people.
I'm sure they're having these discussions right now. What are our plans if
we only get one hundred million of this? What are our plans if we
don't get a red scent of it? What's the plan if we delay it
by another year? Or are we just totally stuck? Is the because let
me tell you the You drive in downtown Fresno, you drive in the Chinatown
district around there, you drive sort of I'm trying to get my bearings directionally
south and west of Grizzly Stadium. It's a ghost town out there. It's
just we are so hung up with all the construction that needs to happen for
the high speed rail, well it it looks frankly dystopian. And I just
think Gavin Newsom, it almost it almost would have been better if Newsom hadn't
roped us into this whole thing, because I think we got I think Dyer
got sold to Bill of Goods. I think Newsom made this grandiose problem in
a bumper time, and now that things are lean, he's not. Newsom's
not going to be able to deliver. And for Newsom this is you know,
he he fundamentally does not care. And he there you know he does
not care. And a new governor again, if this can gets kicked into
twenty twenty seven, a new governor is not going to care. Like a
new governor is not gonna feel obligate to keep the word of Gavin Newsom when
we return a devastating takedown of Governor Newsom's budget projections for the year. That's
next on The John Gerardy Show. As city leaders in Fresno are reeling from
yet another year long delay of the promise two hundred million dollars in state funding
for downtown Fresno revitalization, called it I called it. To be specific,
I called it. I predicted that this would not come through. I predicted
that after that first one year delay, that highly unlikely was going to come
in the next year. Because the basic reality California's budgetary situation is unsustainable.
We are dependent on too few people supporting a budget that is too large,
too few people with not enough money supporting a budget that's too large. We
made all these grandiose plans when we had that sort of post COVID bump where
we had a budget surplus. I think that's where this idea that the state
would give fresnow two hundred fifty million dollars came from. Now that we're facing
deficit spending, guess what, Downtown Presnent revitalization is just not a very high
priority on Gavin Newsom's list. I don't know that we're ever going to get
that money. So Roger Niello, California State Senator, has a great piece
looking at sort of Newsom's state of denial regarding the budget. On Friday,
Governor Gavin Newsom presented his revised budget. So, for those who don't know,
the way it works in California is the governor introduces kind of a preliminary
budget early in the legislative year, and then come May, so a month
after tax day, after he's gotten tax revenues in, the governor gives a
sort of adjusted budget. So that's where we are now. Last Friday,
Governor Newsom gave this adjusted budget, and that from this adjustment comes the news.
Sorry, Fresno, you know that one hundred million dollars we said we'd
give you this year and then one hundred million next year. Yeah, we're
pushing that back one more year. So Roger Niello's California state senator writes this,
I am concerned that the governor's budget banks on rosy revenue projections and continues
a legacy of reckless spending that began during the democrats decade long control of the
budget process. One party rule has fed unsustainable spending, and California is on
a path of deficit spending for years to come. In fact, the reckless
spending is how a staggering ninety eight billion dollar surplus in twenty twenty two,
when Gavin Newsom made this grandiose play edge to Jerry Dyer, When we had
a ninety eight billion dollar surplus in twenty twenty two turned into an equally staggering
seventy three billion dollar deficit, according to a non part as an estimate,
in just two years. In May of twenty twenty two, Newsom proudly proclaimed
the ninety eight billion dollar surplus for the upcoming budget year, a surplus fueled
in large part by federal pandemic spending, ding ding ding, and a Silicon
Valley stock market boom. Both were short term factors. We were not living
in some new budget normal. Thank you. This is what I keep saying
about the Fresno angle of this. Twenty twenty two Newsom makes this grand pledge
to dire but it was based off these black swan events that just were not
going to happen again. One getting all this federal COVID money, and two
a little Silicon Valley stock boom where you know, as the be pointed out,
capital gains tax revenue to the state dropped like a stone even just between
twenty twenty one to twenty twenty two. So you're getting less than capital gains
tax revenue because the stock market's calming down, you don't have all this federal
COVID money, and that normal, I think, is what's resulting in the
state having deficit deficit, deficit deficit. And if the state's gonna have deficit
deficit deficit deficit, they're not gonna have room for one hundred million dollars this
year and one hundred million dollars next year for Fresno. Niello continues, We
are not living in some new budget normal, but the governor and Democratic legislators
chose to spend as though the good times would never end. In January of
twenty twenty three, Newsom introduced his proposed budget for the upcoming year. A
nearly twenty two billion dollar deficit loomed. Steps to curbs spending should have been
implemented immediately, but they were not in May of twenty twenty three. So
again, this is the schedule by which the governor does the budget, introduces
it in January, does an adjustment in May. In May of twenty twenty
three, the deficit had ballooned to an estimated thirty two billions twenty two billion
to thirty two billion, and the forecast from the Governor's Finance Department indicated the
deficit of at least fifteen billion dollars for each of the following three years instead
of addressing the deficit by bringing spending in line with revenues. Newsoman Democratic legislators
leaned into borrowing, fund shifts and other gimmicks to paper over the deficit for
the year. By early last December. After analyzing tax data following the November
tax filing deadline, the Legislative Analyst's Office projected a sixty eight billion dollar deficit
by this past February. Based on tax receipts through January. The LAO TO
uped its deficit forecast to seventy three billion, and that's about where we stand
now, despite the governor's claim that the deficit is smaller. In the past,
California's budgetary process was more inclusive. Without a supermajority of Democrats in controlled
decisions required broader consensus, necessitating a conference committee where divers voices could contribute to
the fiscal dialogue. This system fostered negotiations and compromises, ensuring consideration of a
wide array of perspectives in the budget making process. It was transparent. Now
it's just the governor and Democrat leadership making all the decisions, mostly behind closed
doors. The governor claims he is fiscally prudent, but that's not really the
case. He continues to spend recklessly on costly programs that have made the fiscal
hole much worse. For example, of the gimmicks that he's using, the
Governor's claiming one point six billion dollars in budget savings by shifting the payroll due
on the last day of this fiscal year to the first day of the next.
That's purely accounting sleight of hand. Postponing the payment by twenty four hours
merely creates an illusion of savings. No, not one dollar is saved,
and next year's deficit is now worse. The takeaway from all this one party
rule is drowning this state and debt. Borrowing from future revenues, shifting funds
from other accounts, and deploying accounting gimmickry are short sighted tactics and ignore the
root cause of the deficit, unsustainable spending. The need for transparency in the
budget making process has never been greater by the way governor dropped his budget update
off dropped his budget update on a Friday, days before he jetted off to
Italy. That says a lot right there. It shouldn't be this way.
It's time for California to embrace genuine physical solutions, heat expert advice, and
move beyond the mirage of temporary fixes. Really good piece, really good piece
by again Roger Niello, California state Senator. I think he's from kind of
northern California, near Placer County. And with that rosy picture of things,
I will again affirm my contention, We're never going to get this money.
We're never going to get that two hundred million unless some crazy I don't know,
stock market bubble happens or some other event happens with a big federal bailout.
I just don't see a likely scenario during this governorship of US getting that
two hundred million dollars for Fresno. If this is how the budget, if
this is really the norm, and twenty twenty two was the exception, then
this twenty twenty two plan of fifty million dollars one year, that one hundred
million dollars next year, that one hundred million dollars next year, that twenty
twenty two plan is not going to work because twenty twenty two was the aberration.
Twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four big def big deficit. That is
the norm, and they're not going to find the money for us, not
during this governorship, and once we get a pharaoh who knows not Joseph,
I think this deal is over when we return. Why Republicans make total morons
of themselves by thinking the government should not do good things? Next on the
John Gerardi Show, Republicans have developed about fifty years of libertarian brainworms that they
can't get out. Like the brainworm eating away at RFK Junior's brain, Republicans
cannot shake this libertarian instinct fearing, well, that's big government, this idiotic
non argument that they selectively apply fly when they want to. Basically when they
selectively apply when it's just something they don't like, and it makes Republicans sometimes
look like complete idiots. I've seen two examples of this, and it gives
me the opportunity to talk about this sort of more fundamental philosophical thing. First,
I saw a Republican, well not a Republican, some kind of kind
of crazy lady on Twitter, some one of these MAGA accounts who occasionally has
something smart to say, but often is in maga Looney tune Land, who
was looking at a member of the House of Representatives was introducing safety legislation regarding
table saws. Table saws are notoriously dangerous tools. They're extremely dangerous. They're
responsible for lots and lots of accidents. People have lost fingers from table saws.
It's my only real introduction to table saws was working in my grandpa's workshop
shed and we were doing woodworking stuff when I was growing up, and he
was like, all right, don't touch the table saw. You let me
touch the table saw. Stay away from the table saw. Now, there
are some new developments in certain kinds of table saws that they have the safety
mechanisms in them where and I've seen like videos of this where these new safety
standards and table saws. And by the way, i am not a contractor.
I am not an expert on table saws. Okay, so bear with
me, but I've seen videos of this. I'm sure it's much more expensive
than just producing a normal table saw. But basically there's these new kind of
safety mechanisms for table saws where I've seen demonstrations of it, people holding a
hot dog close to the blade of a table saw, and that at the
even the slightest touch of something that doesn't feel like wood. Basically, I
guess of softer material, softer tissue. It results in I don't know,
some kind of signal, electric signal, something being triggered instantaneously for the table
sauce to slam on the brakes and stop. And you can see that the
hot dog is barely grazed by the blade. And so the idea being that
this is a safety mechanism to allow table saws to be much safer if someone's
finger, If someone's finger comes into contact with the blade for a you know,
nano second, even for a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of
a second, it stops the blade hole. This seems like a good idea,
and this conservative person say, this is ridiculous. Why are we mandating
stuff like this? This should be a question of choice. And this is
the thing I hate about the way conservatives think about things. I again,
maybe I'm wandering into a field that I know too little of. I'm willing
to admit that. You know, you get a microphone in front of your
face, and all of a sudden, you think you're you know God's gift
to mankind, and you know all things about all topics, and if any
of you are contractors at Fresno Johnny go to Twitter dot com slash Fresno john
at President Johnny, tell me I'm an idiot. The idea that safety regulations
are bad makes conservatives look like idiots. Seat Belts are another example of this.
Seat belts manifestly, obviously and clearly save thousands of lives. It is
so obviously a massive, massively beneficial regulation. To insist on safety, to
insist on seat belts, it is better for everybody. It's better on the
healthcare system, better on ears, better on better on the individual. It
is good. A further instance of this, And I feel like I'm gonna
go from things that you're least on board hang on, Hay in there with
me, radio audience. I think I'm gonna go gradually go from stuff you're
less on board with to more on board with, to more on board with.
So maybe I wasn't getting all of you with the table saw a thing.
I think maybe I've got a few more of you with seat belts because
you all wear seat belts, or ninety nine percent of you. Now I
come to a bill in the state of Missouri, a bipartisan bill aimed at
banning all child marriages in Missouri is facing opposition from Republicans, which may hinder
its passage into law. Why is the government intervening in people's personal lives?
To this extent, question Representative Dean Van Shoyak, why is the government intervening
in people's personal lives? All? Right? First, is this i idea
of intervening in your personal life. The government can intervene in your personal life
in a bunch of ways, and it should. If you're beating up your
wife or you're beating up your kid in the privacy of your home, the
government should get involved. If you're privately dealing crack from your house, the
government should get involved. This idea that, oh, I'm doing this in
the privacy, What business is it of the government to interfere in the privacy
of my home? Certain things, yeah, certain things we want to respect
the privacy of the home. There's a wide area of that. But the
very fact that something's being done in private does not mean the government shouldn't be
involved. If it's really bad, if it's something that's really deleterious to public
order, if it's something that's really deleterious to the social fabric of our society.
This is the fundamental difference of opinion between what i'd say this tug of
war in conservatism, between Enlightenment ideas on the one hand and the Bible on
the other, or more classical philosophical approaches to the role of government. The
Enlightenment idea is that we cannot fundamentally know what is good. We do not
fundamentally know what is right and what is wrong. We do not know any
objective moral truth that is out there. Therefore, the role of the government
is not to impose some objective moral truth, but simply to give people the
biggest platform for choosing the good for themselves, as long as you're not stepping
on other people's toes, and it's the stepping on other people's toes that's the
stuff. If we regulate, so murder. We can regulate because you're stepping
on other people's toes. But if people make a free choice that's not infringing
on anyone else's free choices, then go for it. The classical approach to
government, though there is Detelian or i'd say Biblical approach, is that no,
we can know what is right and what is wrong. There is an
objective moral order out there, and government can help direct us to it,
to guide us to what is right by condemning what is wrong, so long
as our condemnation of what is wrong doesn't lead to more worse outcomes on the
side. And really, at the end, a lot of people might say
that there's strict libertarians in that sense, but they don't really mean it.
In our society, we don't even believe it. Why is prostitution illegal in
most of the United States of America Because it's bad. It's bad, and
frankly, it's hard to really trust that people engaged in prostitution are really making
free choices. Why Because it's a desperate thing. It's something that's often the
fruit of massive crippling, bad social positioning, whether massive need for material support,
a drug habit, or just being a victim of sex trafficking. And
this is just what I hate. I wish Republicans would just have a sense
of this is a good thing to do, versus this is not a good
thing to do. This constant idea, Well, it's manifest here's this manifestly
dangerous piece of technology that's chopping off fingers left and right. And now we're
gonna hold the line that we shouldn't have you know consumer safety regulations? Why?
Well, because of capitalist society, the best outcome will always happen.
No, the best outcome is not always gonna happen unless the company manufacturing the
table saws is sued or unless they are sued into making something safe. Basically,
some kind of governmental related, law related intervention is gonna have to force
these companies to make products that are safer. It's what ultimately we had to
do with the automotive industry. And furthermore, when you get to the idea
of hey, here's a propose, here's a proposal that we shouldn't allow children
to get married. It leads to all kinds of abusive situations. Of the
time, when children get married in this state, it's leading to abusive situations.
We should ban it. You have to be eighteen to get married.
Now. I think there are possibly reasonable people one side or the other.
But I think the worst argument is, well, are we interfering in people's
private lives too much? Like this idea that the government shouldn't touch something that's
private. Marriage is a public institution. Of course the states should regulate it.
Of course the state should oversee it. It's the public institution. It's
the building block of society. And if child marriage is being repeatedly abused in
order to facilitate abusive situations, yes, the states should step in because we
know what is right and what is wrong, or we have confidence in what
is right and what is wrong. Maybe some people disagree on that vision,
but I think there's an objective truth out there that we can know. Take
the libertarian brainworm out of your head. When we return. President Biden's pretty
upset about all these polls that make it look like Donald Trump's going to win.
That's next done the John Gerardy Show. So there's all these new polls
out. I think it's this New York Times Siena pole which is going battleground
state by battleground state and showing that Trump is winn, winn, winning,
winning in all these different battleground states. He's neck to neck, if not
ahead, in even the popular vote, which if Trump wins the popular vote,
I think the path for Biden to win the electoral college is a pretty
darn slim, and it's leading to the Biden administration just sort of flailing,
sort of, Oh, the polls are all wrong. The polls are all
wrong, and now we're getting all the sort of negotiations back and forth about
the presidential debates, where Biden's basically I just want presidential debates with no audience
because that would kind of distract him, and I want him only on these
networks, the network's most friendly to him. And so the Trump people like,
all right, sure, sounds good, why don't we do these two
additional debates also, So now I guess we're going back and forth about whether
we're going to have two debates or four. I think Trump's going to win.
I'll admit around this time last year, I thought Trump was going to
lose. I thought I think the general strategy was the Democrats weren't going to
bring any of their prosecutions until this year. Trump would be in the midst
of all of his legal battles and being convicted of things right now, and
that would lead him to lose the election. I just don't think this New
York trial is really sticking, and I just don't know even if he is
convict, he's not going to serve a day in jail likely, and I
just don't think it's going to have the same impact because I think people have
kind of already made up their minds. I don't know. I just I
think he's gonna win. That'll do it for John Girardi's show. See y'all
next time on Power Talk