Tom Steyer Wants To Tackle California's BIGGEST Problems

Steyer identifies California's primary problem as residents being unable to afford living there, citing high costs in housing, healthcare, electricity, and gasoline. He asserts that corporate special interests profit from these high costs and actively resist change. His core strategy involves directly confronting these corporations.

Steyer states, 'the number one problem in California is Californians can't afford to live here anymore. And that starts with housing... includes healthcare for sure, includes electricity costs, includes gasoline costs... there's a corporate special interest that is making a lot of money from that and doesn't want change.'

Steyer proposes specific measures to reduce corruption and corporate influence in California politics. He aims to ban corporate PAC money, prevent utilities from using their monopoly profits to maintain their power, and increase investigations and prosecutions for political corruption.

He states, 'I want to ban corporate pack money. I want to prevent utilities from using the money they get from their monopoly to make sure they maintain their monopoly. You know, I want to do investigations... of corporate corruption.'

Steyer's plan for homelessness prioritizes keeping people off the street through rental assistance and rapidly moving those experiencing homelessness into 'emergency interim housing.' This housing would offer private rooms, allow animals, and provide safety and support services, contrasting with traditional shelters that many avoid. He argues this is significantly cheaper and more effective than the current system.

Steyer explains, 'What I'm talking about is let's keep people off the street. Let's give them rental assistance to prevent them from becoming homeless. If they're on the street, let's get them off the street as fast as possible. And what does that look like? It's being done in places in California successfully. Emergency interim housing. A room that's yours with a key. You can bring your animal. You don't have to be substance-free. shared dining facilities, shared laundry facilities, safety and support services.' He also claims, 'this is a lot cheaper.'

Steyer advocates for a single-payer healthcare system in California, arguing it's an imperative solution to spiraling healthcare costs that are 'eating up' family budgets and the state's finances. He believes it would cost roughly half of the current spending while delivering equal or better outcomes.

He states, 'A singlepayer system costs about half as much as what we're spending right now in this state and provides outcomes that are as good or better than the outcomes we're getting right now.' He also notes, 'it is eating up every family... It's incredibly expensive and it's crushing the budget of the state of California.'

Steyer explicitly states he does not take foreign government lobby money and criticizes organizations like APAC as 'dark money organizations.' He supports amending legislation (like 715) to protect free speech rights, particularly for pro-Palestinian protests, and opposes laws that penalize boycotts, divestment, or sanctions against Israel.

When asked about foreign government lobby money, he replies, 'Absolutely not.' He calls APAC a 'dark money organization that has no position in our pockets.' Regarding free speech, he says, 'I think that the idea of cutting off free speech for protest is something, you know, obviously people have a right to free speech and people have a right to their opinions.' He also states, 'I think you have the right to do what you want in your in your life' regarding BDS.