No, Gavin Newsom, Has Not ‘Opposed All Efforts To Raise Taxes’

As California Governor Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) builds his national profile in advance of a 2028 presidential bid, successfully so according to recent polling, he is aided by a state press corps that glosses over some of the less appealing aspects of his record. Take the Sacramento Bee, which reported on August 27 that “Gov. Gavin Newsom has opposed all efforts to raise taxes during his tenure.” That statement provides the former San Francisco Mayor and current California Governor with the sort of moderate sheen he’ll need to appeal to a national electorate. The only problem is it’s not true.

Gov. Newsom has opposed all of the wealth tax bills filed during his tenure as governor. However, Newsom has not, as the Sacramento Bee reported, “opposed all efforts to raise taxes during his tenure.” In fact, Gavin Newsom was one of only two governors to impose a tax hike in 2020.

In the summer of 2020, during the height of the state-imposed lockdowns, Governor Newsom and California legislators approved AB 85, which raised taxes on businesses by $9.2 billion over three years by suspending net operating loss deductions and limiting business tax credits to $5 million per year. That tax hike on California employers, which Newsom signed in June of 2020, was made retroactive to the start of the year.

Aside from Gavin Newsom, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy (D) was the other governor to raise taxes on individuals or businesses in 2020. Gov. Murphy and New Jersey legislators raised taxes on both, enacting legislation in September of 2020 that made New Jersey’s 10.75% top marginal income tax rate kick in at $1 million instead of $5 million in annual income.

“This move is ill-advised in normal economic times, but especially in the current crisis,” the Tax Foundation noted at the time about that New Jersey tax hike. “Since taxes on so-called pass-through businesses—S corporations, partnerships, and sole proprietorships—are imposed at the individual level, many small businesses will face a tax increase under the new system.”

At a time when Gavin Newsom and Phil Murphy were raising taxes on household and businesses struggling to stay afloat amid state-imposed lockdowns, most other governors approved tax relief. That fact could provide fodder for Newsom’s prospective 2028 opponents, but many of them also have a record of raising taxes to deal with.

Take Maryland Governor Wes Moore (D), who has been in office for less than a year but has already signed into law billions of dollars in income tax hikes on households and employers. Governor Moore’s first budget, which he signed into law back in May, balanced the state budget by raising taxes on upper-income households and small businesses that file under the individual tax system.

Should Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) face Newsom in a primary, she might also be disinclined to criticize the California Governor’s 2020 tax hike because doing so would be akin to throwing stones from a glass house. Governor Whitmer, after all, unilaterally repealed a legislatively-enacted income tax cut that her predecessor, Rick Snyder, signed into law based on a controversial legal theory.

“In 2015, then-Governor Rick Snyder (R) and Michigan lawmakers enacted an income tax relief package that scheduled rate reductions for future years based on revenue triggers,” this author previously reported. “After an income tax rate cut was triggered for 2023, Governor Whitmer and her state’s Attorney General argued that it was temporary. Nowhere in the enacted law, however, did it say the income tax was to be temporary, nor was that the intention of lawmakers at the time.”

In an attempt to brandish moderate credentials that might appeal to primary voters outside California and even general election voters, Gavin Newsom could play up the fact that he has opposed every wealth tax bill filed in Sacramento. But that won’t stack up well next to the record of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear (D), Democrats’ only 2028 prospect to have signed into law a state income tax cut passed by a GOP-run state legislature.

When signing that income tax cut into law back in February, Governor Beshear said “things cost too much for our families,” adding that the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration “would raise prices on virtually everything.” While other 2028 Democratic presidential prospects like Gavin Newsom and Wes Moore have also criticized the Trump tariffs and can be expected to continue doing so, Republicans can point out that Newsom and Moore have also raised imposed tax hikes that raise costs for employers and consumers. The GOP cannot lob such a rebuttal at Governor Beshear. “If you want the lower income tax rates passed by Republicans but without the accompanying tariffs that have been unilaterally imposed by the Trump White House, I’m your guy,” is an argument that Andy Beshear, and perhaps no other Democrat, can credibly make on the campaign trail.

Meanwhile another 2028 prospect, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) is calling for an acceleration of the corporate tax phasedown signed into law by his predecessor. The executive budget proposed by Governor Shapiro earlier this year called for expedited corporate tax relief, “reducing the current tax rate each year by 0.75% resulting in a 4.99% tax rate in tax year 2029.”

Governor Shapiro’s office notes that thanks to their corporate tax relief proposal, “Pennsylvania businesses would realize $10.5 billion in total savings as a result of these tax cuts.” Shapiro could highlight that initiative and the way in which it contrasts with Newsom’s multi-billion dollar, mid-pandemic tax hike on businesses as evidence that the Pennsylvania Governor would be a more competitive general election candidate.

It’s helpful for Gavin Newsom to have the statehouse press corps in Sacramento that ignores or falsely denies his record of raising taxes. However, should Newsom officially throw his hat in the ring for 2028, he’ll likely find that his primary opponents, and certainly his general election opponent, are not as negligent.