What a Bloomberg victory would mean for California
Mike Bloomberg would give California a centrist president from the tech world, someone who prides himself as a pragmatic decision maker guided by hard data and not political expediency.
After 12 years as mayor of
Mike Bloomberg’s proposals on major issues are similar to those of his moderate Democratic rivals for president.
New York, Bloomberg has faced the problems that plague urban areas like the Bay Area and Los Angeles. His campaign slogan, “Mike will get it done!” is designed to show him as a different sort of candidate, one concerned with actions, not words.
Talking last year about the Green New Deal, a wideranging — and expensive —environmental statement backed by many progressive Democrats, Bloomberg expressed reservations.
“I’m a little bit tired of listening to things that are pie in the sky, that are never going to pass, and we’re never going to afford,” he said. “I think it’s just disingenuous to promote those things.”
Bloomberg “is not going to scream from the mountaintop with oratory that’s going to make you cry,” said Michael Buckley, a spokesman for his California campaign. Instead, he will provide the state with datadriven plans “that aren’t theoretical. He’s going to get stuff done.”
While many of his proposals look familiar — his call for a public option on health care is much like those of the other moderate presidential candidates — his rationales often reflect someone who made billions bringing financial data into the information age.
Bloomberg’s plan to battle wildfires, for example, calls for deploying “the best available data systems, including satellites, aircraft, artificial intelligence and communications technology.” His infrastructure effort would “leverage data from both the public and private sectors to make smarter decisions on transportation investments.” Getting people off the street and into housing will require efforts to “expand proven housingfirst strategies.”
Here’s how a Bloomberg presidency could affect California:
Environment
Bloomberg’s environmental plan would be a huge change from President Trump’s view of energy production with “clean, beautiful coal.” But it would come at a price for California.
Bloomberg is calling for “the orderly replacement of existing gas power plants” and blocking construction of new ones in favor of cleanenergy plants. California now has about three dozen gas power plants, including in Pittsburg, Santa Clara, Antioch, San Jose and Hayward.
His call for speeding permits for offshore wind projects and interstate power transmission lines also could stir controversy among environmentalists.
Bloomberg would end federal subsidies for fossil fuels and put a moratorium on new fossil fuel leases on federal lands, steps leading to moving to a 100% cleanenergy economy before 2050.
His environmental plans also include efforts to ease the danger of wildfires. Bloomberg has endorsed bills by Democrats Sen. Kamala Harris of California and Rep. Jared Huffman of San Rafael to put $1 billion a year into communitybased wildfire plans and spend $10 billion on firemanagement efforts, with half going to forest restoration.
Gun control
California has some of the country’s toughest guncontrol laws, and Bloomberg wants to take many of them nationwide.
State rules setting a minimum age of 21 for all firearms purchases, barring gun possession by violent misdemeanor offenders, and banning assault weapons and highcapacity magazines have all found their way into Bloomberg’s plan.
But Bloomberg, who has spent millions of his own money on guncontrol causes over the years, would move even further than California, most notably by requiring every gun buyer to get a permit before making a purchase. That would effectively set a state and/or national gun licensing program.
He also would ban people from buying a gun without passing a background check, bar anyone but a police officer from having a gun on any school campus, kindergarten through college, and have the Consumer Product Safety Commission treat guns like any other household product, allowing the government to set nationwide safety restrictions.
Bloomberg’s focus on stopping gun violence has caused him problems. As New York’s mayor, he expanded the city’s “stop and frisk” program, which allowed police to do patdown searches for guns on anyone stopped for questioning. Young African American and Latino men were by far the most common targets.
While Bloomberg said stop and frisk cut crime and gun violence, he has apologized numerous times for the overuse of the program since getting into the presidential race. Bloomberg said he didn’t immediately realize how it affected New York’s communities of color.
Immigration
Pushing back against Trump’s efforts to tighten the nation’s borders, Bloomberg has argued that America needs more immigrants, not fewer.
“The fact is that immigration doesn’t threaten America, it strengthens America,” he said in announcing his immigration plan.
His plan shares much with those of other Democratic candidates: He would protect “Dreamers,” undocumented immigrants brought here as children; create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented residents; end Trump’s travel ban; and stop construction of the wall on the Mexican border.
Bloomberg would set the annual refugee resettlement target, which has dropped to 18,000 under Trump, at 125,000.
In what could be good news for Silicon Valley, Bloomberg wants to change the immigration system to attract foreign innovators and entrepreneurs and create new placebased visas that allow communities to bring in immigrants with the skills needed in their regions.
Infrastructure and transportation
For Bloomberg, the future calls for “a smarter, faster, safer and greener infrastructure network” that includes improved roads, bridges and transit, pollutionfree transportation and safe drinking water, all priorities in California.
It wouldn’t be cheap. He would put $1 billion a year into a national “pothole” fund for emergency repairs. Over 10 years, another $850 billion would go to make those infrastructure upgrades. Investment in public transit would triple, including $12 billion annually to improve service and attract new riders. Alternative transportation, including bike lanes, also would see more funding.
Bloomberg is far more enamored with the prospect of highspeed rail than many of the Californians skeptical of the costly effort to link Los Angeles and San Francisco. He wants to complete one highspeedrail corridor in 2020 and three by 2030, a plan that could include the California system.
Bloomberg would spend $100 billion over 10 years to provide clean drinking water to everyone, with the 100 communities with the greatest problems being taken care of in the first year. That could include Central California cities around Modesto and Fresno, as well as towns such as Isleton (Sacramento County) in the delta.
In a boost to cities such as San Francisco, he also want to change federal subsidies “to make transit, cycling and other mobility options as appealing as driving.”
Taxes and finance
Bloomberg would single out California’s richest residents and businesses as part of a plan to raise $5 trillion in new revenue nationally over the next decade. The money would be used to pay the bills for his spending plans on health care, infrastructure, the environment and other proposals.
Besides reversing Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and returning the top earners’ tax rate to 39.6% from 37%, Bloomberg would eliminate the capital gains tax break for people making more than $1 million a year and put a 5% surcharge on incomes of $5 million a year.
But middleincome residents would also feel the pinch. Bloomberg wouldn’t reverse Trump’s $10,000 limit on deductions for state and local taxes, which hurts homeowners in states like California, where taxes are high and home prices — and mortgages — are through the roof.