DOGE and the Trump administration‘s anti-fraud task force have exposed just how much fraud Democrats encourage and the ridiculous programs on which they lavish taxpayer money. But California Gov. Gavin Newsom isn’t even trying to be secretive; he is loud and proud about his plan for his state’s taxpayers to fund a portrait of his smirking visage.
The Democrat who brought you the high-speed rail that sucks up money without ever coming into being has a new plan to waste taxpayer money and honor his accomplishments as the worst governor in California history. Even some of Newsom’s fellow Democrats are telling him to cut the drunken overspending, per the California Post, but Newsom wants millions of dollars to honor “living governors” of California, including through a specially commissioned portrait of himself.
Gov. Hair-do hopes to get the cash from California’s General Fund even as some lawmakers within his party tell him discretionary spending needs to shrink, not expand. The state is facing up to an $18 billion budget deficit, but as Newsom isn’t running for reelection as governor, he doesn’t seem to give a hoot what happens to the state after he is gone.
This is hardly the best way to advertise himself as a potential presidential candidate, however.
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The California Post reported:
California’s governor wants taxpayers to spend $33,000 on an official portrait of him, even as Democratic lawmakers fume over Newsom’s “absurd” $20 million proposal to honor the state’s living former governors — an exclusive club of which he’ll soon be a member.
Funding for the proposed painting is included in Newsom’s proposed 2026-27 budget under “Governor’s Portrait,” which says the money would pay for the “traditional painting of the Governor’s portrait” to be displayed in the State Capitol alongside portraits of every other California governor.
Republican State Sen. Suzette Valladares is particularly disgusted. Sacramento, like other major cities throughout California, is a cesspool of homelessness, high crime, and high taxes, yet Newsom is simply planning how to make other people pay for a painted paean to himself. “Only in Sacramento would a governor look at struggling families and think, ‘You know what this moment needs? A painting of me,’” she exclaimed.
Republican Assemblywoman Alexandra M. Macedo of Fresno is equally irritated, especially since she represents the area where the high-speed rail was supposed to materialize. Over $14 billion later, Newsom‘s railway to nowhere remains more fiction than reality. “At least future generations will have a painting to remember who kept spending billions carving a permanent scar through prime Central Valley farmland for a train that will never connect Northern and Southern California,” Macedo said sarcastically.
Former Democrat Gov. Jerry Brown began the practice Newsom is citing of putting up gubernatorial portraits in the state Capitol upon leaving office. Some legislators described Brown’s 1984 portrait as looking like “spilled ketchup and soy sauce,” and you can see why below:
Gavin Newsom’s last state budget includes $33K portrait of himself https://t.co/giayxwu7gz pic.twitter.com/xUjbbUOQ0P
— New York Post (@nypost) May 26, 2026
Whether Newsom’s portrait is as hideous as Brown’s or not, the last thing the state’s government needs to spend taxpayer money on is a portrait of Commiefornia’s biggest failure.
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