Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom told California newspaper publishers Friday that California needs “a plan for greatness.”
While California has successfully returned to budget solvency, he said, what’s missing now is a strategy for the future at a time of nonstop innovation.
“What’s missing in California is a plan for greatness,” said Newsom, who is running for Governor in 2018. “We were the temple of the American economy. The world looked to us. That’s clearly no longer the case.”
Newsom spoke at the annual meeting of the California Newspaper Publishers Association at the Hotel del Coronado.
The former mayor of San Francisco cited a list of innovations that have turned traditional industries upside down, from iTunes, to Airbnb, to Uber to Craigslist. The later undercut the newspaper industry’s classified advertising business, costing it billions of dollars.
“In every way, we’re on a collision course with the future,” he said. “The industrial economy has run out of gas.”
State government in Sacramento requires a new way of thinking, he said, moving beyond industrial-age solutions.
He promised to spend the next four years before the election formulating a strategy for California’s future, and promised it would be focused on growth. “You’ve got to grow your way to prosperity,” he said.
