Gavin Newsom’s EV rebate insults Californians – Latest News
Once again, Gov. Gavin Newsom is dipping into Californians’ wallets to bankroll an electric-vehicle handout — this time a $3,500 “MyFirstEV” rebate for first-time consumers.
This, whereas the state can’t keep the lights on for fundamental issues and the governor performs national politics with different people’s money.
The program sinks roughly $135 million of taxpayers’ money into instantaneous reductions for a choose few. That’s money yanked from staff and households already paying some of the very best taxes in America.
It’s going to shave a few grand off sticker costs for sure automobiles — whereas housing stays unaffordable, homelessness festers, wildfires rage, roads crumble and on a regular basis prices keep climbing.
Once again, Gov. Gavin Newsom is dipping into Californians’ wallets to bankroll an electric-vehicle handout — this time a $3,500 “MyFirstEV” rebate for first-time consumers. Anadolu by way of Getty Images
Prioritizing EV car subsidies over these crises isn’t management. It’s an insult.
And let’s not fake that is some noble coverage. Newsom is waving the rebate slip round as California’s massive rebuke to federal tax credit rollbacks.
He’s forged himself because the progressive hero standing up to Washington.
Too unhealthy the invoice lands on California taxpayers. We’re footing the fee of his national photo-op.
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The precise advantages? Narrow and lopsided. First-time consumers of EVs costing beneath $50,000 new (or $25,000 used) get the break. Plenty of lower- and middle-income households nonetheless can’t swing the remaining of the price, the upper insurance coverage or the home charger. Apartment renters are principally out of luck.
So the broad tax base subsidizes a very slender slice of better-positioned consumers. Classic.
Market actuality makes it worse. The federal EV credit vanished on the finish finish of 2025. EV gross sales cooled, and seller heaps stuffed up with sluggish movers. Big automakers took tens of billions in write-downs whereas delaying or killing off EV fashions in a panic.
Ford, GM, Stellantis, Honda and others hit the brakes. Private industry is strolling away from the precise section Newsom is now propping up with our public {dollars}. Nothing says “smart investment” like Newsom throwing more money at a product the producers themselves are scaling back.
A July 2026 Public Policy Institute of California ballot confirmed 66% of adults and 65% of possible voters reject Newsom’s 2035 ban on new gas-powered automobiles.
Opposition is up sharply since 2021 and now consists of half of Democrats.
Taxpayers are underwriting a imaginative and prescient from Newsom that almost all of Californians have already rejected, whereas the governor milks it for national applause.
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This isn’t a one-off. It’s half of a sample of problematic handouts.
State auditors documented roughly $20 billion in fraudulent pandemic unemployment funds via California’s Employment Development Department.
Hundreds of tens of millions of {dollars} flowed to unlawful immigrants’ legal protection, utilizing public money to combat federal law enforcement.
Governor Gavin Newsom (proper) pronounces new financial savings for California car consumers and a main milestone within the state’s clean power future on the Bridge Yard Facility in Oakland, California, on Friday, August 7, 2026. (2026 Anadolu) Anadolu by way of Getty Images
Add the diaper giveaway tied to Newsom’s spouse and the image will get clearer: massive checks, smooth oversight and priorities which might be more political than sensible.
Against that monitor document, what’s one other $135 million for EV rebates? Just pure salt within the wound.
Californians already pay via the nostril and deal with day by day complications.
We watch the waste pile up, then get advised our earnings will now underwrite automobiles in a smooth EV market whereas the governor scores political factors for his 2028 presidential bid.
The anger he receives is earned. Taxpayers shouldn’t must keep bankrolling handouts that benefit a choose few regardless of majority skepticism.
The MyFirstEV rebate is simply the newest instance of hard-earned money spent by Gavin Newsom on the mistaken issues for the mistaken causes.
California deserves higher than this.
Richie Greenberg is a political commentator primarily based in San Francisco.
