“The glee in which @GavinNewsom talks about spending billions of dollars, as if it’s an ends instead of a means, is odd. Never seen a politician giddy about spending and spending like it’s a huge success,” California Republican strategist Rob Stuzman tweeted this week.

The tweet, which came as Gov. Gavin Newsom was unveiling his fourth budget, summed up the entirety of Newsom’s first term.

Nothing has really changed under Newsom, or at least no problem has been solved and no progress has been made, but he’s spent a lot of money.

Newsom has burned through record budgets and massive surpluses with glee. This time it’s a projected $286.4 billion, a nine-percent increase from last year’s record budget, and that’s with a surplus of 45.7 billion.

Newsom told us all the great things he’ll do with the budget, just like all the things he said he was doing with the previous budgets.

But what has that spending got us?

Last year Newsom bragged about the tremendous investment in public schools. Unfortunately, those schools were weighed down by largely self-inflicted wounds of distance learning, part-time in-person learning, teacher shortages, student mental health issues and chronic absenteeism.

And this week we learned that according to standardized test scores, just 49 percent of students met or exceeded English standards, 34 percent for math and 29 percent for science. It’s no wonder the state Board of Education is pushing to get out of these tests.

I’m sure someone reading this will say that these scores were taken at a time when teachers and students are both under intense pressure from COVID restrictions.

While that might be true to an extent, this year’s scores aren’t really much worse than those of right before COVID.

Last year, Newsom introduced a “Historic $12 Billion Package to Confront the Homelessness Crisis,” according to his press release. Apparently, that plan would “end family homelessness within five years.”

Ironically, Newsom made a similar pronouncement as Mayor of San Francisco to end homelessness in ten years. Well, his mayoral plan didn’t deliver on its promise and neither will his gubernatorial one.

Newsom is almost one year into his five-year plan. Walk outside and tell me if we’re one fifth of the way towards ending family homelessness.

When asked when Californians would start seeing the results of all this spending on homelessness, Newsom replied: “I’m not the mayor of California,” according to San Francisco Chronicle Reporter Joe Garofoli.

That’s really a heck of a statement since many mayors are basically governors of their cities. But it’s the typical nonsense we get from Newsom when pressed on his impressive string of failures that are preceded by lots of spending and grandiose announcements.

If you were to ask Newsom, and he were to give a coherent answer, he’d likely say his biggest successes have come with his response to COVID. While it’s true that California’s deaths per capita ranking is relatively good among the states (14th), the total picture is far worse.

Politico evaluated all states and found that when considering health, economic, social and education outcomes, California ranks in the bottom half.

Of course, health is very important, but there are trade offs we all agree are important, like social interaction, working, education, and that is why no one argued for a two-year shutdown.

At this point in the column, I could go in any direction. I could point out the absurd cost of living, which funds Newsom’s failures while crushing low- and middle-income families.

I could point to Newsom’s inability to fight unemployment fraud and administer unemployment benefits effectively.

I could point to the smash-and-grab retail crime that’s skyrocketing. Or the murder rate.

I could point to Newsom’s inability to solve the housing crisis, which, mind you, he said he’d do while campaigning for governor. He said he would put the state on track to build 3.5 million new housing units by 2025. And like every other big Newsom announcement, he’s nowhere near that. Nowhere.

I could point to all his massive budget surpluses that scream taxes are way too high, and yet the best thing he can come up with is a gas tax increase holiday. Not a gas tax holiday, an annual increase holiday. People will be saved from being charged an extra few cents per gallon – nothing more. And only for a year.

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I could point out how his budget calls for more funding for high-speed rail, a program he killed during his first State of the State address and then quickly brought back to life in the form of a useless line from Merced to Bakersfield.

Voters might still like the fantasy of high-speed rail. And if the state could have delivered on what was promised, it might have been great. But it’s years behind schedule, billions over budget and will probably never be built never be built. Newsom is just lighting money on fire.

I could go on forever, really. But to bring it back to Stutzman’s tweet: Newsom spends money, and that’s it.

Newsom is often credited for saying his budget reflects his values. If that’s true, then he values attention above all, not results.

Follow Matt Fleming on Twitter @FlemingWords.