
(Bloomberg) — California Governor Gavin Newsom and top Democratic legislators have reached an agreement on a $351.7 billion state budget that will be bolstered in part by a newly proposed tax on digital software sales.
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The spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1 is Newsom’s last as governor and comes as state finances are buoyed by an artificial intelligence boom fueled by home-state companies.
Even as California notches better-than-expected tax revenues and the spending plan balances the state’s budget through the following fiscal year, the agreement is largely void of major new spending commitments.
Appropriators are instead looking to save money in the face of significant federal funding cuts to healthcare and other services under President Donald Trump. The state is also grappling with growing costs, deficits in future years and a highly progressive tax structure that leaves its finances vulnerable in the event of a market downturn.
The plan will leave about $4.5 billion for the state’s regular reserve and a total of $35.2 billion across savings accounts. As part of the budget agreement, the legislature is placing a measure on the November ballot that would allow the state to stash away more money from spikes in revenue, such as IPOs planned by California-based OpenAI and Anthropic PBC.
The deal provides $90 million for distressed hospitals and $250 million for public hospitals. That is less than half of what the hospital systems requested in preparation for more than $3 billion in cuts annually under Trump’s landmark tax measure from 2025. Several cuts to healthcare services proposed by Newsom but opposed by legislative Democrats will be delayed under the agreement. Meanwhile, many Democrats in the state capital are hoping their party will win control of the US House in November’s elections and reverse at least some of the biggest cuts to programs such as Medicaid.
“We’re protecting healthcare, preserving food programs, investing in housing at record levels and building reserves to fight back no matter what Trump and Republicans throw at us,” Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, a Democrat, said in a statement.
The budget plan raises funds by extending sales taxes to prewritten software that is downloaded from the web, rather than purchased on a disc. Newsom and Democrats, who expect the plan to raise $900 million for the state and another $1.1 billion for local governments in fiscal year 2028 fiscal year and then annually thereafter, cast the change as modernizing old sales tax policies to account for consumer habits.








