California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has released an ad opposing Proposition 30, a ballot initiative that would raise taxes on the state’s wealthy residents even further to help the state’s poor residents purchase electric vehicles he is forcing all to buy.
Proposition 30 is being funded by Lyft, which has a clear financial interest in having the state’s taxpayers subsidize the forced shift to an electric vehicle fleet. Few ride share drivers can currently afford the available electric vehicles on the market.
In the ad against Proposition 30, Newsom attacks “one company’s cynical scheme to grab a huge taxpayer subsidy.”
What Newsom does not mention is that his own policy is the main reason the company proposed the initiative. In September 2020, barely weeks after rolling blackouts hit the state due to a shortfall in solar and wind power, Newsom announced that new sales of gas-powered cars would be banned in California by 2035. Regulations to implement that policy were approved by state bureaucrats in August — just before a heat wave in which drivers were told not to charge their cars at certain times.
Proposition 30 would raise state income taxes by 1.75% on households earning more than $2 million, spending 45% of the revenue to subsidize electric vehicle purchases; 35% to build charging stations; and 20% on fighting wildfires. The 80% of the revenue connected to electric vehicles would be directed to low-income drivers and communities, the proposition states.
Newsom’s opposition may be mere kabuki theater — that is, a performance aimed to burnish his moderate credentials as he builds a nationwide profile for a likely presidential run in the future. As the Wall Stret Journal notes, the state’s politicians find it politically convenient to have a big company like Lyft raise income taxes for them so that they can avoid responsibility.
Uber and Lyft have clashed with California before, most recently in the battle over Act 5, a union-backed law that requires companies in the “gig economy” to classify independent contractors as employees, threatening the companies’ business model.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.