California’s Dem. Gov Gavin Newsom unveils new plans to defund the police in crime-ridden state after massive budget deficit

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed new budget would cut police funding as the state faces a massive budget deficit of at least $45 billion.

Last month, the Democrat unveiled his budget for the next fiscal year, admitting that “tough decisions” are needed to address the state’s deficit — including a 1.6 percent cut to the Justice Department’s overall funding .

The proposed budget includes cuts of $97 million to the Justice Department, $10 million to the Justice Department’s Law Enforcement Division and more than $80 million to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, as reported by Fox news.

Newsom’s plan comes at a time when major national stores and local businesses in California say they continue to experience rampant theft. Videos of large-scale thefts, where groups of individuals brazenly storm into stores and take goods in plain sight, have often gone viral.

Crime data shows that the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles saw a steady increase in shoplifting from 2021 to 2022. Across the state, shoplifting rates rose over the same period but were still lower than pre-pandemic levels in 2019, while commercial burglaries and robberies are more common in urban counties.

Meanwhile, homelessness rose 6 percent last year to more than 180,000 people in California, federal data shows. And since 2013, the numbers have exploded by 53 percent, with the state accounting for a third of America’s entire homeless population.

Violent crimes in the state increased 27 percent between 2013 and 2022, and the number of pickpockets more than doubled.

This is the second year in a row that the nation’s most populous state has faced a billion-dollar deficit. State revenues have continued to decline due to rising inflation and a slowdown in the state’s usually robust technology industry.

Officially, Newsom said the state deficit is $27.6 billion. But it actually comes closer to $45 billion if we include previous cuts that Newsom and the state Legislature agreed to in March.

Including cuts in state education spending, which Newsom has not taken into account, the deficit would actually be billions of dollars more, according to a recent analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Newsom’s plan comes at a time when major national retailers and local businesses in California say they continue to experience rampant theft and crime

A spokesperson for Newsom told Fox News in a statement: “The budget proposes numerous ways to make government more efficient and reduce costs to taxpayers, including cuts to prisoner spending.

“Since Governor Newsom took office in 2019, the state has made record investments in law enforcement, including $1.1 billion to tackle crime, support police and hold criminals accountable.”

So far, Newsom has not reversed some of his splashiest policy developments, including free preschool for all four-year-olds and free health insurance for all low-income adults regardless of immigration status.

But as Friday’s proposal showed, Newsom is willing to undermine some of those promises to balance the budget.

While Newsom has not stripped anyone of health insurance, he proposed that the state stop paying health care workers to care for some 14,000 disabled immigrants in their homes. That would save the state $94.7 million. While he did not withdraw from the state’s commitment to expanding preschools, he proposed cutting $550 million that would have helped school districts build the facilities they need to teach all those extra students.

After pledging to pay for child care for an additional 146,000 children from low-income families, Newsom on Friday proposed pausing that expansion at 119,000. And after promising how much money doctors will get to treat Medicaid patients, Newsom proposed Friday eliminating the $6.7 billion set aside for that purpose.

San Francisco’s crime and high homelessness rates persist, especially in the surrounding downtown area and nearby Mission District. This year, a man is seen sleeping outside the mall

In total, Newsom is proposing $32.8 billion in cuts over two years, including eliminating 10,000 unfilled state jobs and an 8 percent cut to state operations — including things like eliminating landlines. He promised there would be no layoffs, furloughs or pay cuts for the state’s more than 221,000 state workers.

The size of the deficit is important because it will shape the national prospects of Newsom, who is a key surrogate for President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign and who is also widely seen as harboring his own presidential ambitions.

Newsom has spent much of his time in office basking in the glow of historic budget surpluses that allowed him to significantly expand state spending. But back-to-back budget deficits — with more to come — are testing California’s resolve to make those increases.

Newsom ran an unprecedented budget surplus of more than $100 billion during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the past two years have saddled him with a multibillion-dollar deficit, a less welcome position for a governor seen as a potential future Democratic presidential candidate.