{"id":319371,"date":"2026-05-16T23:00:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T23:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/319371\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T23:00:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T23:00:18","slug":"newsoms-last-revised-budget-closes-deficit-eyes-2028-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/319371\/","title":{"rendered":"Newsom\u2019s last revised budget closes deficit, eyes 2028 future"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like his predecessor Jerry Brown<\/a>, outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom intends to leave state finances better than he found them when he leaves office early next year.<\/p>\n

The state is expected to close its structural deficit and maintain a balanced budget through July 2028<\/a>, according to Newsom\u2019s final revised budget proposal, which he presented Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re cutting deficits, not corners,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n

He attributed the balanced budget to $16.5 billion in projected capital gains taxes from artificial intelligence companies Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX, all three of which are expected to go public in the next year.<\/p>\n

Newsom spoke glowingly about the trifecta, calling them \u201cCalifornia startups that are now dominant businesses,\u201d referring to their massive wealth and proximity to power in Silicon Valley and the White House.<\/p>\n

The governor\u2019s ties to Big Tech date back to when he used<\/a> to let Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin crash on his couch in the 1990s. Newsom defended the state\u2019s reliance on AI companies\u2019 revenues by contrasting it with his signing last year of a major bill regulating the technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re the first (state) to regulate large language models and frontier models, the first safety regulation in America, the first to do a big executive order before the Biden administration,\u201d he said. \u201cYou also know my position on (social media usage for children) 16 and younger<\/a>, I\u2019ve been very clear on that, and very proud of California\u2019s nation-leading efforts to regulate, at the same time, not to over regulate so we continue to inspire more innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The news that Newsom could leave office with a balanced budget is a major turnaround from January, when his finance officials projected a nearly $3 billion shortfall<\/a>. Last year, Newsom came under fire for pausing Medi-Cal expansion for undocumented residents and imposing a $30 monthly premium on existing enrollees to cover holes in the budget.<\/p>\n

Those policies are expected to take effect next year. And the $30 premium could be $50 if the Legislature approves Newsom\u2019s proposal by the June 15 deadline.<\/p>\n

Newsom said he was following in the footsteps of Brown, who left office in 2019 not only with a balanced budget but an $8.8 billion surplus<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cJerry was one of the first to do that in a long time. You know, in the past, it was just short-termism,\u201d he said, seemingly referring to the budgetary crisis of the later Schwarzenegger years<\/a>. \u201cIt was just, \u2018get the hell out of Dodge,\u2019 and that didn\u2019t service the state. And so I think it\u2019s deeply part of (Brown\u2019s) legacy, and I want it to continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are other motives for Newsom, whose tenure has been marked by COVID-19, devastating wildfires, and a failed recall campaign, to leave office with a rosy financial picture.<\/p>\n

Unlike Brown, who retired in 2019 at age 80 to his family\u2019s Colusa County ranch<\/a> after 16 years of service, Newsom, 58, is reportedly eyeing a run for president in 2028.<\/p>\n

He declined to say anything when reporters asked<\/a> if he was running and what he planned to do after leaving office in January.<\/p>\n

Instead, he pulled up a generated photo of the proposed gilded White House ballroom with a photo of himself as president in the center of the room.<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Lia Russell<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n

Lia Russell covers California\u2019s governor for The Sacramento Bee\u2019s Capitol Bureau. Originally from San Francisco, Lia previously worked for The Baltimore Sun and the Bangor Daily News in Maine.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like his predecessor Jerry Brown, outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom intends to leave state finances better than he found…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-319371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}