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Dear California State Lawmakers,

I am a proud Clipper Card carrier who rides BART and SF MUNI — and also I’m a taxpayer, so I write to you today about SB 63, which proposes a tax increase for public transit.

Thirteen years ago, the California Chamber of Commerce and other big business organizations cut a deal with Governor Jerry Brown not to oppose a 30 percent temporary tax increase on individuals. Since then the state’s General Fund has extracted an extra $95 billion from individual taxpayers, including small businesses that pay business taxes at individual rates, and annual General Fund Expenditures have increased 165 percent.

Klein and his co-author Derek Thompson believe more of everything is the answer to what ails California. But bad governance will ruin it all.

Recent guests on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s podcast, such as MAGA influencers Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk, might be stunned to learn about the policies the governor is pursuing between his stints masquerading as a friendly host for right-wing guests. So might Californians.

Katie Porter entered the 2026 race for governor this week and has asked to meet with GFC, which we will do. Among the questions we will have for her and other candidates for governor are the following…

Last June, Governor Newsom signed a state budget requiring $4.3 billion in annual efficiencies from State departments, CSU and UC. But in January, Newsom reported that the departments under his control and funded by the General Fund expect to achieve just one quarter of the savings expected from them:

In its first 10 years, California’s “temporary” income tax increase enacted 13 years ago extracted $75 billion of extra payments from taxpayers. Since then, two more tax years have elapsed, implying $95 billion of total extra tax payments to date.

13 years ago voters approved a seven-year increase in the top income tax rate. Sold as an education measure, the real reason was to cover up a tripling in annual school pension costs:

Early in my tenure in the Schwarzenegger Administration I learned about a 60+ person group inside a Cabinet agency that was responsible for handing out program grants. After a review, I concluded that the group’s work could be done by 10 people.

All too often, political donors enable poor governance by not engaging in due diligence. Eg, in 2022 an entertainment industry executive spent $1.85 million to help Karen Bass defeat Rick Caruso in the contest for mayor of Los Angeles. Do you think he exercised due diligence before making that choice? That doesn’t seem likely to me.