The U.S. economy is expanding like none other in the world, California Gov. Gavin Newsom told Newsmax Thursday.
Newsom, a Democrat, said on "The Record": "There's no economy growing like the United States of America, by the way. The Wall Street Journal said it best. We're the envy of the world."
Newsom said this is due in part to falling inflation, which after peaking at 9.1%, is now down to 2.1%, and to the 14.2 million jobs he said the Biden-Harris administration has created — 800,000 of which, he said, were manufacturing jobs.
As for the biggest problem facing California and the U.S. as a whole, Newsom said it's the lack of affordable housing and the growing homelessness problem. He said California bears the blame for its explosion of homelessness, "because of our own policies and neglect, we put up our our feet. We rested on our laurels. We allowed NIMBYism [not in my back yard] to dominate in our state.
"It's Econ 101 — supply and demand. We simply have not been building enough housing for decades and decades and decades. So the cost of living affordability has been the dominant challenge in our state."
But Newsom said homelessness is becoming a problem in red states as well, where, he said, "the housing costs, insurance costs across the board in states like Florida are increasingly challenging."
Newsom hailed Vice President Kamala Harris for her economic plan, which proposes to build more affordable housing, even as he admitted it's thin on specifics. He said, "We'll have plenty of time to talk about the details."
Addressing the flood of fentanyl pouring over California's southern border, Newsom said, "I have 394 National Guardsmen and women working on counternarcotics, working with Border Patrol, working with Customs and Border Patrol." He added, "We just significantly increased that support to supplement the rank of those that are on the border, doing good work every single day."
Newsom went on to tout his state's balanced budget, noting that California residents received some $18 billion in tax rebates, "the largest of any state in American history."
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