If he could, he’d put his face on California money
By Katy Grimes,
January 22, 2026
California Governor Gavin Newsom has budgeted $33,000 for a self-portrait, but no money for wildfires. Gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton weighs in on this below.
It’s one line in an expenditure schedule. Page 227 of the Governors Budget Summary, Item 0720. There are no other details yet on the proposal.
Someone on X asked if Hunter Biden is the artist.
This isn’t Gavin Newsom’s first photo shoot.
Remember when “Gavin Newsom’s office hires famed photographer for $200,000 a year?” Even Politico noted that “The California governor is increasingly relying on in-house staff to showcase his accomplishments.”
That was when we saw Gavin’s glamour shots along the Great Wall of China on his world tour:
President Donald Trump’s White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly wondered yesterday in Davos, why Newsom “is frolicking around Switzerland instead of fixing the many problems he created in California.”
The list of terribly important California issues is long and serious, and his bad policy decisions list is as long. Governor Newsom’s California, can be partially summed up this way in this incomplete list of disastrous policy decisions:
- Perpetual water rationing
- Highest taxes in the nation
- Billionaires and businesses fleeing to other states
- California’s crime problem: Gov. Newsom announced in 2020 he planned to close two state prisons – he has closed five – and all three state-run juvenile prisons.
- Cities in decline
- public employee labor unions striking/shaking down taxpayers
- mentally-ill, drug addicted homeless population living on and littering streets with feces and drug needles
- Wildfires in Los Angeles – cities still not rebuilt
- ongoing attempts at reparations for descendants of slaves
- $8.00-$12.00 per-gallon-gas coming, courtesy of Gavin Newsom, who has forced oil companies to shutdown refineries.
- porn in K-12 curriculum – masturbation instructions in middle school
- State mandated secrecy of gender transitioning children from parents
- public school teachers strikes
- energy shortage, rolling blackouts
- Newsom’s COVID 3-year State of Emergency order from March 2020 until the end of February 2023
- Newsom’s Vaccine mandates for school children, days after opposing one for prison guards
- Newsom signed AB 5 into law, killing off the state’s independent contractors
- Newsom’s $1.5 billion no-bid contract for masks from Chinese electric bus company BYD
- Gun control bills overturned by federal judges. Again. Again. Again.
- Newsom’s own Ministry of Truth – his “Commission on the State of Hate,” he created via Executive Order also establishes the state’s first Racial Equity Commission
- Gov. Newsom tried to pass a Tax on ‘Windfall Profits’ on Oil Companies
- Gavin Newsom’s French Laundry moment wasn’t confined to dining out – besides multiple vacations out of the country while he locked down Californians. In Feb. 2022 he starred in “MaskGate” at the NFC Championship game in Los Angeles – despite his own face mask mandates.
- Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 145 by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) which lowers the penalties for adults who have sex with same-sex minors – this means the new law allows a 24 year old to have sex with a 14 year old and escape a felony conviction and requirement to be a registered sex offender.
- Newsom gifted free Medi-Cal coverage to every illegal immigrant in the state, costing taxpayers $10 billion to $12 billion. Very recently, Newsom admitted the state’s Medi-Cal program for low-income Californians is insolvent. His solution? Newsom is going to cut Medi-Cal to any poor or disabled elderly Californian who has $2,000 in “assets.”
This is a partial list of serious issues in California – there is much more. But Gavin’s priorities include a $33,000 self-portrait.
If Newsom could, he’d put his face on California money.
Katy Grimes: Katy Grimes, the Editor in Chief of the California Globe, is a long-time Investigative Journalist covering the California State Capitol, the co-author of California’s War Against Donald Trump: Who Wins? Who Loses? and a contributor to “Taxifornia 2016.”
A California native and Navy mom, Katy lives in Sacramento, CA.
This article was originally published published by California Globe
