Newsom has grown California’s government to a record size. Now he, too, is selling ‘efficiency’

It’s not only Washington, D.C., where “efficiency” has become the buzzword du jour.

With California facing an uncertain fiscal future, Gov. Gavin Newsom made his own pitch for a leaner state government last week as he previewed his annual budget proposal. Touting billions of dollars in savings from eliminating empty positions and scaling back spending on everything from travel to printing, the Democratic governor compared his efforts to the Department of Government Efficiency, the incoming Trump administration’s push to slash costs across the federal government.