What's Next, Los Angeles? with Mike Bonin
Los Angeles is at a turning point. We are living in a defining moment. What happens next is up to us. Over the past few years, problems and challenges have shaken this city -- and tremendous opportunities for change have presented themselves. How do we rise to this moment and emerge a better place to live? What will it take to create a more just and a more equitable community? Working together, how are we going to create a stronger, forward-thinking Los Angeles? Mike Bonin, writer, teacher, progressive activist and former City Councilmember, looks at the issues and problems facing Los Angeles, examines ideas, and talks with the people who will lead us to a brighter future.
Produced in partnership with LA Forward.
What's Next, Los Angeles? with Mike Bonin
TOM STEYER: Gubernatorial Candidate Spotlight
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He is a businessman, an environmental advocate, and a former presidential candidate, and has emerged as an early Democratic frontrunner in the race for governor of California. He is running on a message focused on affordability, government performance, and economic fairness. Tom Steyer joins me to talk about his campaign. We talk about a lot of issues you don't hear about on the statewide campaing trail - child welfare, play equity, the struggles of staying in college while holding down a fulltime job, gentrification, and more.
What's Next, Los Angeles? is produced and hosted by Mike Bonin, in partnership with LA Forward.
He's a businessman, an environmental advocate, and a former presidential candidate who has emerged as an early Democratic frontrunner in the race for governor of California. He's running on a message focused on affordability, government performance, and economic fairness. Tom Steyer joins me to talk about his campaign on this episode of What's Next, Los Angeles. Hi everyone and welcome. I'm Mike Bonnman. Thank you so much for joining me. California's next government will take office at a moment when the state is confronting a familiar but unresolved set of challenges, from the cost of living and housing shortages to climate pressures and questions about how effectively state government delivers results. The early stages of this race are already shaping up around those issues. Today's guest is Tom Steyr. He's a businessman and an environmental advocate, and he has emerged as one of the leading candidates in the race. Steyer built his career in finance as the founder of Farallon Capital Management, before stepping away to focus on political and environmental work. Over the past decade, he's become one of the most visible climate activists in democratic politics, founding Next Gen America and investing heavily in voter mobilization and in climate campaigns. He ran for president in 2020, positioning himself as an outsider candidate focused on economic inequality, political reform, and climate change, and he has remained active in national and state politics since then. Now, as a candidate for governor, Steyr is arguing that California has the resources to address its biggest challenges, from housing and homelessness to climate resilience, but that it needs both stronger execution and new revenue, including higher taxes on the wealthiest Californians and changes to the way corporate income is taxed. I sat down with Tom Steyr last week to talk about his campaign and about how he sees the path forward for California. My goal was to ask him some different questions. He gets asked about Trump, ice raids, and the state budget all the time. I wanted to shine some light on some other topics. So I asked him about gentrification, child welfare, play equity, food deserts, and college students struggling to stay in school while working full time. Here is that conversation. Tom Steyer, welcome to What's Next Los Angeles. Mike, thank you for having me. Very good to see you. Nice to see you too. It's a pleasure. You look hail and hardy. I uh I was just saying to a member of your staff that the the best thing that can happen to someone's health is to leave public office and leave the campaign trailer.
SPEAKER_02So uh thank you. Yeah, thank you for that.
SPEAKER_01I wish you uh best of luck in the campaign, and then I wish you a a speedy return to private life and health. So um let me dive right in with some questions. Um as I was saying before we started, I want to ask questions that that you may not have been asked in other places. So uh a few questions about housing. And uh the first question I want to ask is about housing affordability. Um there are there have been lots of pushes over the past several years to uh uh increase density in California, and almost everybody running for governor agrees that we need more housing. But the bulk of the bulk of the housing that gets built tends to be uh market rate housing. Uh do you think that we're building enough affordable housing? And if not, how can we make sure that we're building more affordable housing?
SPEAKER_00Obviously, we're not building enough affordable housing, and I think that that's a critical issue. And let me talk about it both in terms of building it and then in terms of financing it, because both are really relevant. You know, when we look at if you go online, you can see where I have a plan on this, but I always say about housing, you know, it's not a silver bullet, it's silver buckshot, it's multiple issues. It's about expensive, time-consuming, overlapping, permitting issues. Yep. It is about zoning still. It is also about how we build housing. And we build housing, it's very expensive the way we build housing. And there is new technology to build housing, to construct housing off-site and assemble it on-site. And if we do that, we can drive down the cost per square foot of a third, which is really important if you want to build affordable housing. And the fourth thing is I'm talking about on the first day calling a special election to get rid of a corporate real estate tax loophole. That's a big mouthful. But think of it this way: $20 billion to localities for education and healthcare.
SPEAKER_01So those things drive down the cost of housing to the person building it, but it doesn't necessarily drive down their desire to make a profit.
SPEAKER_00So how do you make sure that people can that's where I was talking about the financing? I started, first of all, we need to drive down the cost. And then second of all, we need to make it available. And California has done a very um incomplete, is the nicest word I can say, job of helping working people finance housing. And so it's going to be critical as we build housing that is much cheaper to actually help people, you know, afford to get their down payment and afford much lower interest rates. You know, my wife and I started a nonprofit community bank over 20 years ago, and we have financed 17,000 affordable housing units. So I know it's possible. And I know that with lower construction costs, faster and cheaper permitting, better zoning, and the ability to build off-site, actually, this is something that should be doable. I think that we're going to be building different units of different size, but it's going to be possible for working people to own a home.
SPEAKER_01Because the the financing stuff helps with first-time home buyers. Yes. Um how do you impact the cost of the new rental units, which tend to come online as luxury?
SPEAKER_00So the other thing that's true about the new technology is that it is it in it is not something that you can do only for one or two stories. This can be built for bringing down the cost of multifamily housing, otherwise known as apartment buildings.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00Um, really, really substantially. And that means it's going to bring it into so it is absolutely relevant for rent. It is absolutely relevant. And, you know, it's something we have to do. You know, there has been a sense that not building housing is a victimless crime. Look, there wasn't any housing before, there's not any housing now, nobody got hurt. And we all know that's not true anymore. There are tens of millions of Californians who are hurt by the fact that we're not building housing. And so, look, we this is a we have an absolute need, necessity mandate to build a lot of houses. I've said I'll build a million houses. Do I think that solves the problem? I think that's a good down payment on the problem. I think we start to bring it. But the the point is we're gonna have to overcome those obstacles. There are obstacles to every single ones. I was thinking about permitting zoning, building off-site, and delivering uh, you know, $20 billion by closing a corporate loophole.
SPEAKER_01So every solution has benefits, but every solution also has unintended consequences, right? So one of the unintended consequences often of new development is that it coincides with uh rising rents and the displacement of longtime residents in certain neighborhoods. It's one of the reasons why density is such a hot button issue in some of the lower income communities of color, right? A lot of the state legislators have from South LA have voted against SB 79 and other things because they're afraid of displacement in historically black communities, for instance. What do you see as the state's responsibility in preventing displacement and what policies would be able to do?
SPEAKER_00But it's about controlling rents. You know, to a very large extent, by having too little building, too few units, you've given existing landlords a situation for a lot of people, disproportionate demand for their units, which means the price can go up a lot, which is what's happened. Right. And that's a pub that that exists because of a public policy failure. It's really important that we police, you know, and prevent really jack people unfairly jacking up rents. It's absolutely critical. And, you know, that's something when we think about gentrification, it's really about people coming in and, you know, bidding up the rent to take over apartments. Sure. And maybe it's not kicking people out, but it's when the apartments turn over. Right. And I think it's really important to make sure that rents are policed, but also that we're aware of it and giving people assistance so they can stay in their neighborhoods.
SPEAKER_01Uh so you you you talk about rent caps. California already has some statewide rent caps and some statewide eviction protections, but a lot of renters are still experiencing displacement. What do you think is missing from the the the current framework or what state policy hasn't?
SPEAKER_00I think there's a real question about how much those rent where those rent caps are, because they exist, but they're pretty darn generous. Yeah. And I think that we need to be enforcing them. And I think they need to be at ri you know relevant l levels. Look, Californians are suffering. You know, there is a sense, and I was talking about victimless crimes. People are, you know, there are millions of Californians who are giving up their healthcare coverage so they can make their budget match at the end of the month. You know, people are trying to decide which bills to pay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We are in a crisis, and the idea that there is not pain associated with not building has got to end. There is gigantic pain. And when people are pushing against it and explaining why they're not hurting anybody, they are hurting people. And so there's got to be an acceptance within, you know, across this state, that yeah, one size doesn't fit all, every community is individual. Absolutely, I get all that. But the truth is for people who are going to stop any kind of physical building around them, that we've got to roll, we've got to make sure that we do it in a thoughtful way, but we are going to have to do it.
SPEAKER_01So there's a patchwork of different renter protections around the state, right? There's some statewide stuff. LA does certain stuff. Other cities that are sort of under different requirements, conditions of Costahawkins can't do certain things. Should we repeal Costa Hawkins?
SPEAKER_00I don't know. Honestly, my that is a question that I would have to go back and look. And you know, when you give a commitment on something, if you want to be the governor and think there's a chance you can be the governor, I don't want to give my word on something unless I know for sure I the answer.
SPEAKER_01Fair answer. Um in that patchwork quilt, you've got things that the city of LA has done, like just cause eviction preventions, which really limits when under what reason somebody can be evicted. Are there any things you see local governments doing that you think should be statewide policy?
SPEAKER_00Look, to me, it's about how much you raise rent. To a very large extent, what we've been seeing is that, you know, if if you have too few units and people's pay goes up six percent, rent goes up twenty percent.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so it it's just true. All of the increase in people's wages goes to rent. And so to a very large extent, that's not fair.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so that's because of a public policy failure, people who have existing units are getting a gigantic windfall profit. And that's not, that's not fair. And it's putting pushing people to the wall. And you know, the the old rule was you shouldn't pay more than a quarter of your pay in uh rent. Right. And people are paying, a lot of people are paying more than 50%, and that is driving people to a place they can't afford to live.
SPEAKER_01I want to shift from housing stability to how people actually move into opportunity. College affordability uh and completion is one of the things I wanted to talk about. You've got many students in California, California community colleges and the Cal State University system. Uh, their biggest financial barrier isn't so much the tuition, it's staying enrolled while they're working and covering basic expenses. I know that. What changes would you make that would measurably improve completion rates by helping them?
SPEAKER_00So let's talk. I I know more about this, and I know that I've been to a lot of Cal State campuses, but I know more know more about the community colleges because I focused on it more from a policy standpoint. And before I talk about community colleges, let me say I love the kids who go to Cal State. They're incredibly sincere.
SPEAKER_01They are.
SPEAKER_00They're incredibly hardworking, they're incredibly humble. And I it it's the biggest higher education system in the world, and it's a critical part of California. So I don't want to dismiss it. And I but I want to start with community colleges because I know some of the stats. 70% of the people in community college work full-time. Community colleges, the the tuition is free, but living is not free.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So one of the things that I know is incredibly helpful is to the extent we can deliver this stuff online so that people can do it at that at their time around their families, around their full-time employment, to me is gotta be a critical part for helping kids be able to access one of the critical support systems for low-income kids in the state of California to climb the ladder. Maybe to go, maybe to get a skill, to get a j a specific job, maybe to go to a four-year institution, a CSU or a UC, but it's an absolutely critical part. And so anything we can do to help those kids, because by definition, they are working their tails off. By def 70% of them have full-time jobs and are going to school. Right. And my friends who've done this and used it as the lever to change their lives, I am so respectful of what they went through and what the community colleges allowed them to do. That anything we can do to make that easier, anything we can do to make their life easier and to deliver it in the way that works for them, I'm in favor of it. And that's a perfect example. One of the things that I want to say about going to CSUs and UCs is the sort of 1930s film version of going to college is not the way people go to college. And what I've seen is how many kids really can't afford to eat while they're in college.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And people don't know that. But it's absolutely true. How many kids who are sleeping in their cars going to college? I was going to say people can't afford a room when they go to college is really astonishing. And I will say that Kat Taylor, my wife, and I pushed really hard for free breakfast and lunch for every K to 12 kid in the state of California. And we really should be asking for kids going to college. If you, you know, if you can't afford to eat, there's really a question about whether we shouldn't be providing food assistance very specifically in the same way that we do for school kids.
SPEAKER_01Should the state make it easier or help finance uh building uh more housing for students on uh campuses?
SPEAKER_00I would be a big, you know, it's sort of funny. I'm sitting here thinking through that because you're right. People haven't asked me that question. One of the things that I think is going to be true is, and this is a broader answer to than the question you asked, is should we be helping finance specific opportunities for specific populations? Which is really what you're asking in a specific question as opposed to in a general way. And that's something I think we should be doing. And you know, I I've been asking in other specific situations for teachers, you know, for for other populations who literally can't afford to live in the places where they work, and therefore that means either you leave your job or you take a very long commute, which makes your life, you know, a a lot harder. And I think we're that you know, it seems inevitable to me that that's where we're we're gonna go, that we're gonna be doing housing for specific populations who have specific needs. Yeah. I I think we're going there.
SPEAKER_01Um workforce development, I want to talk about a bit. Uh we've got many workforce programs that you know they really struggle to to serve people who are working or who are caregiving or who are dealing with housing instability.
SPEAKER_00Um Workforce development meaning training.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. What would you change about how the programs are structured so that they actually work for those people who face the biggest barriers?
SPEAKER_00So to me, one of the biggest things I feel about retraining or training programs for jobs is to make sure that there's a specific time limit and a specific job. Because, you know. What do you mean by that? That you complete this program, you get this job at this price for this company. Right. I think that Mike, I you know, it's kind of like when we think about failed public policy, I would say the failed retraining programs in the Midwest through the 70s, 80s, and 90s, as manufacturing and the auto industry kind of got punched in the face by a combination of international competition and technology. It seems to me that was a huge failure. And if you look at some of those places, it's been disastrous.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It seems to me that if we're going to be doing retraining, it is so much better if there's a specific program over a specific period of time, which if you successfully complete, you get this job. So it's not like, okay, now you could be a quote unquote car mechanic. It's like, good luck. You know, and I think that the good part about that is you're training people for the right thing. Yeah. Because the problem here is training them in general to find a job as opposed to training them specifically to receive a job. And I think that that's, you know, there's I if AI works the way it may work, I I I don't know that it will or won't, but there's a, you know, there's obviously a very big threat to people. Yeah. Then to the extent that there's going to be a gigantic governmental need to do retraining. And it and the the way that that will work is if we're working towards specific jobs, I think that will be a big success. And if it's this general thing that they did in the Midwest, that didn't work out. And so I'm going to be very, you know, if I'm the governor, I'm going to be very focused on trying to make sure that people are being retrained, hopefully for jobs that pay better.
SPEAKER_01Easy to do that with public sector jobs. How do you do that with private sector jobs?
SPEAKER_00Because you the company's got to be involved. But there are an awful lot of private sector jobs that are skilled jobs where they there's no one qualified to do them. And therefore, having the training, you know, we can bring we can answer their need and they can answer our need. Right.
SPEAKER_01Let me go beyond economic opportunity. I want to talk about some of the conditions that people are living in every day in California. Environmental justice. Uh, you've done a lot of work on environmental policy over the years. California has tools like the Cal Enviro screen to identify communities facing the highest pollution burdens. Um, where do you think the state is falling short in actually improving conditions for people in those communities, despite having that data?
SPEAKER_00So I think to take a step back, uh, you know, environmental injustice has been structurally a part of California for a minimum of decades. And we can see that coming up. And I and let me say, to the extent that people feel that that is a historical thing that's no longer true, let me assure you that is false. It is still true. And we can see that both in the kind of data that you're talking about, but also in terms of life expectancies. And we can see it anecdotally. And so, you know, I was down in uh Imperial Beach, south of San Diego, right on the um on the border with Mexico, and they've got a huge environmental issue uh in terms of pollution coming from Mexico, but actually hitting their community really hard. It's a complete crisis. They have closed the beach. I mean, if you think of miles of California beach completely closed, because it's unsafe to go into the water for four years, during which time they have not dealt with the problem. And you know, do I think that that has it to do with the fact that it's a very ling, low-income Latino community? Why, yes, I do. Sure. And I asked those guys, just as a Californian, you will appreciate this. I said, Well, how good's the surf break here? They go, it was considered the best surf break on the West Coast. That it was the best big wave surf break, people would come there from all over until they started going to Hawaii. And it's been closed for four years.
SPEAKER_01Four years, wow.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And do I think that that's a reflection of the community? I really do. And when I think, you know, when I think about where the toxicity is in terms of highways, where the toxicity is in terms of water pollution, you know, toxicity in the water, right? All those things, I know that's located. So I think that the only way to deal with structural injustice is to name it and to deal with it, structural racism. Yep. And, you know, when I look at environmental justice, how do I how do you deal with that? Well, you deal with it by putting it in the forefront of every environmental decision and people from those communities in leadership positions. And, you know, I've spent a couple of decades worrying about the natural world and environmentalism and climate and the ability for us to have a sustainable uh natural world for the future and for ourselves. And, you know, I know that in when in making those decisions, having EJ at the fret included from the get-go, but also having leadership from those communities from the get-go is critical. You won't get the right answers. And we have not been getting the right answers. And going to Imperial Beach and seeing that happening right now was one of those things where I felt like, wow. You know, in in case you think, you know, we've solved all these problems, the good luck is there's more to solve.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. Play equity. There are places in Los Angeles, around California, that have a lot of access to parks. Kids have a lot of opportunities. Then there's other places where, I mean, kids can't walk to uh a a park. They don't have access to play areas. So play equity has been an issue a lot of community groups, particularly in urban areas, have been working on. And they argue that access to parks, to recreation, safe outdoor spaces should be treated as a public health issue. Do you see it that way? And if so, where does it show where would it show up in your budget or policy priorities?
SPEAKER_00So for those of those of you listening who don't know this, I am a complete bug for the importance of being outdoors. I'm a complete bug for the importance of being active physically. And I'm a complete bug for how fun it is to play sports. And so when I think about growing up without access to that, that just oppresses me right away. I mean, the idea of kids not being able to go outdoors and play together and have fun, it's like, oh my God. You know, access to a park, access to a playground, access to all those things seems to me to be a critical part. And in California, by the way, we have the most beautiful state in the world. And shutting people off from that and shutting people off from the physical activity of living in a place where you can be active all year round, for gosh sakes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Seems to me to be completely unfair. And it's a it's a priority. Look, we need to get back to California, not just being successful, which we really are, not just, you know, imagining and creating the future, which we still do, but being a place that's really fun and where we share that fun and where it's available that, you know, for instance, Californians own the beach. I love that.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00The people own the beach. They should own the beach. We all own the beach. Well, we all love to be active. We love this state. We should be able to be outdoors, and that seems something that's really important for kids, for goodness sakes.
SPEAKER_01So it's clearly a personal priority. It's gotta be, but it's not that just but what can you do to make it a budget or a policy priority?
SPEAKER_00Look, I think that the way you have to think about it is this is something which is about mental health. I mean, it's about health, period, physical health, but it's also about you, you know, not being cooped up. And for goodness sakes, you know, I think that is a priority for our kids. And, you know, I've been pushing to say we need to be a top 10 education state again, that if you're going to be a great state, you have to be educating your kids really, really well for the future, since they are the future. And so not to do that is not to be a successful state. Well, you know, as people used to say, a sound mind and a sound body. It's not just sitting alone in your room and playing on your computer. It's actually having a sound mind and a sound body, both because it's so much more fun, it's more healthy, and it's really important for everything else.
SPEAKER_01A lot of the same communities that suffer from environmental racism uh suffer from lack of play spaces.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01But they also tend to be a lot of them food deserts, place where people do not have access to fresh or healthy food. There are some uh active proposals in California to expand healthy food financing programs, uh, like supporting community-owned grocery models in some underserved areas. Uh, which approaches do you think the state should prioritize? And what do you think is holding California back?
SPEAKER_00I don't know. And this is something, Mike, that if you may not know, but Kat and I have worked on for a really long time. I mean, we pushed really hard for free breakfast and lunch for every school kid in California and got 208 organizations to support it. And for it to happen, we're the first state. I think there's another eight states that have followed us and another 25 that are have it on the docket. So it's really changing the world. But that didn't just happen. Before that, we were really pushing for the all the public schools to have farm to table so that instead of, you know, growing up on Cheetos and Coke for lunch, you'd have fresh food because it's so much more healthy. It also helps you concentrate. Every parent in the world knows that if you eat a bag of Cheetos and drink a Coca-Cola, you are not going to be working successfully. Right. You are going to be bouncing off the wall successfully. And so to a very large extent, you know, we have been pushing on regenerative farming and ranching so that the food is better for people, so that it's better for kids. And it's something we take really seriously. And the question is: can we move the ag system much more to a regenerative model where we're producing food directly for families and kids that is actually healthy for them in a real way and tastes good? And so can we do that? We, you know, I've we've pushed on that for a long time. And one of the things I've seen in Los Angeles, I saw it, I haven't seen this in the last couple of years. I probably saw it over five years ago, was a mom, I'll never forget this, she had a plot of land. There was a community plot of land in a city where they were raising food. And her son, they had been had ADHD. So, you know, attention deficit disorder. So it was, you know, just meant it was an overactive kid.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00And they said they were going to give her all these drugs to make him calm down. And instead, she started to feed him organic food that she was growing in her plot of land. And she said, he calmed right down and we never needed the drugs. No kidding. Like having natural food is really important for kids. And, you know, do we have enough land in Los Angeles for everybody to have a plot of land? I'm going to go with no.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00So the question is, how can we encourage that? How can we support that? Because the truth is, you know, it's one of those things. You don't see the cost of eating food that makes you crazy. Right. You just see the cost of being crazy.
SPEAKER_01Right. You also don't see a lot of the reasons why certain neighborhoods don't have access to fresh food, right? Mar Marquise Harris Dawson, one of my former colleague, I represented the West Side. He represented uh South LA. He had constituents drive to my district to go to the supermarket. Yeah. Because on Lincoln Boulevard on the West Side, there were three Ralphs within two miles, but there was nothing in his area. I know. That's market forces, right? I mean the supermarkets think, okay, this is there's disposable income. These people will pay a fortune for tofu here. And so they don't put a market in South LA. So how do you address that?
SPEAKER_00Look, the the the to me, the question is how do you incent the farmers to raise the stuff that they can grow and deliver cheaply enough for people in South LA to buy because you're not going to be able to change the market forces in the supermarkets. You can change the market forces in the ag world. And you know, that's not what we've been doing. And if you actually know how a super, just to be a jerk for a sec, so I'm going to apologize to all your listeners. If you understand how supermarkets work, they make no money on 90% of what they sell. And they make all their money on the specialty items, the sandwiches that they make and sell you, big margin. That's a great deal for them. Often fresh produce, big markup, big margin. Yeah. But you know, selling you Kellogg's cornflakes, that's break-even.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Most of the stuff that they have in a supermarket, they sell at virtually no discernible margin. It's just straight from the producer to you. And it's in those specialty items and the expensive items and the prepared items that they make their margin. That's why they go to, you know, the fancy places on the west side.
SPEAKER_01So then how do the folks in in South LA get the food? Farmers markets?
SPEAKER_00I, you know, I am a if we can produce it cheaply enough, we can deliver it and with a margin. And that's really the question to me is how do we put get our ag system to deal with more regenerative produce, producing it at a price? Because people in those neighborhoods know they want that. Right. They know they want the kids are better off eating the organic food. They know that for a fact. It's too high priced. Yep. And they they look at it and they go, like, of course they want to buy that. But you want to know something? A Big Mac is, you know, I I can deliver a Big Mac for a third the price of all the calories you're getting from those healthy foods.
SPEAKER_01So when we're talking about food, we're talking about kids. So I want to ask about child welfare. Um, the California's child welfare system uh disproportionately impacts black and indigenous families. Those are the families that are disproportionately caught up in the DCFS system. If you're elected, uh what policy would you seek to that would end or or fundamentally change that dynamic? Um, and what political or institutional resistance do you expect?
SPEAKER_00Well, it's all about money. I mean, like, if you travel around California and talk about all the things that people need. There are a lot of them. Yeah. You know, healthcare. Is that something people need? Yes. Childcare for a working mom. Does she need child care? Yes, she does. That's a huge issue. You hear that every day in California. Um fair pay for teachers. That's a money issue. Do we need it? Yes. Of course, teachers need it to be fairly paid. So an awful lot of this stuff comes down to money. I mean, we know the child tax credit works.
SPEAKER_02We know that.
SPEAKER_00We've seen what happens when we deliver it, and we know what, and for the people I know everybody knows this, but it's never, you can never say it enough. The number of people, the of kids living in poverty is shocking. It's absolutely shocking. And it's completely disproportionate. And it's, you know, it's a huge problem for the state of California, and it's a money problem. And so to me, there the easy answer is the child tax credit. When we had it, it was incredibly powerful. Do we need it? Yes. It's a revenue issue, just like every other significant thing that we absolutely do need. And it's a priority question. So to me, I'm the person who's saying on day one, I'll call a special election and get rid of this corporate real estate tax loophole. If you go online and look at our AI policy, one of the things I'm saying in there is we'll have a very small fee for every transaction, every calculation done by artificial intelligence. That could be enough money for us to have a sovereign wealth fund to deal with a lot of these issues. The first, the first order of business will be using it to make sure that it's there to retrain people and protect people's jobs and welfare so that we don't go through what the Midwest did of a hollowing out of the economy and a huge job loss, net job loss in those states. But it's also something where we think there could be enough money there to have a sovereign wealth fund to deal with all of these issues, including the child tax credit. This is a revenue question in the richest state in the history of the planet Earth with the highest poverty rate in the United States.
SPEAKER_01I I think I get where you're coming from, but make the connection a little bit more clear for listeners about how that has any impact on keeping kids, particularly black and indigenous kids, out of the child welfare system.
SPEAKER_00Well, what I was talking about was people who kids who are living with their families. If you're talking about the foster care system or something else, is that what you are talking about? Yeah. Oh, that's a huge issue. Different issue. Yes. Sorry. I was really talking about the the kids who are important issues. How do we realistically, you know, look, I'm the only person running for governor who's dealing with revenue. Let me just say that before we start talking about the foster care system. And the reason I'm doing it is because saying that you want to deliver stuff when you have no means to deliver stuff is misleading. Right. And it's false hope. And we've had enough, you know, we've had enough grandiose talk with no results. I think we're in the we need the results season right now. Um, in terms of the foster care system, gosh, I wouldn't say I'm an expert on it. I have a number of friends who've been through it. I have a number of friends who've been foster parents. Yep. It's a huge part of California.
SPEAKER_02It is.
SPEAKER_00It is something that is involves immense pain. Immense suffering. And doing a better job on foster care would be an immense air. And you know, to me, that will be to a very large extent. It doesn't get enough attention. The leadership of it will be absolutely critical. The oversight of it will be absolutely critical, but the impact of it is incredibly huge. And when we think about homeless youths, when we think about people success in life, however you want to measure that, yeah, this is a system which has to do better and where young people who have done nothing wrong, by definition, are going through an awful lot of pain. Yeah. And we absolutely have to do better. And that's part, I'm sure it has to do with money, but it also has to do with management and obviously.
SPEAKER_01You've mentioned AI a couple times now. Uh I wanted to ask about that. There's lots of public conversation about AI's impact on jobs, particularly job loss. There's a lot of discussion about AI's impact on energy use. Those are the two things I hear about a lot. Beyond those two things, what are the the risks or the beneficial impacts of AI that you think policymakers are not paying enough attention to right now?
SPEAKER_00Well, the job loss is number one, and that's the number one thing we lead with in our policy. That number one, this got to be a tool for workers, not a tool to replace workers. Secondly, when we think about it, we have to make sure that kids under the age of 16 are protected from artificial intelligence. We've seen the mental health issues associated with social media and AI will be that on steroids. And I think 75% of kids under the age of 16 have an AI friend. And yeah. And that relationship can be, you know, the closest rel so-called personal relationship they have, as crazy as that sounds, but it's true. And being able to control that and and to to prevent the, you know, the unintended consequences of that, which can be huge and have been huge and have been fatal, seems to me to be unbelievably important. And so protecting kids on this is important. Making sure that people do not what has happened, we have believed in uh self-regulation and no testing in social media. And we can't have AI released to the market without being tested in in ways that could be destructive of people, that it's got to be t tested and approved. Yeah. Um, and lastly, let's talk about look, this is a cali this is happening very, very fast. It's an overwhelmingly Californian innovation. But is creating on paper virtually unimaginable amounts of money. It is really important that the Californian working people who could be displaced by this, who have built the system that enables this, whose information, experience, um, and data is being used for this, own part of this. It's absolutely it's absolutely critical. And that's why I've proposed this fee on every calculation. Because I it we need to this is like the beach.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Californians own the beach. We know it need to own part of the upside from AI. We cannot have 12 trillionaires and 40 million people who can't make rent. Not a successful state. And you know, I don't care what the averages are, I don't care. Yeah. The truth is we have a society that's too unequal now, and this could make put that on steroids. So it's critical for everybody to own part of this.
SPEAKER_01Uh one more tech question. Uh tech is just expanding so rapidly, not just AI, but uh surveillance technology, right? We've got uh uh license plate readers, we've got facial recognition technology all being used in in in more places than uh than they they were just a few years ago. Um, and they're being used faster than policies are keeping up with them. Are there anywhere, any places or situations where you think their use has already gone too far in California?
SPEAKER_00Are you kidding? Of course I think that. Well, what what should we rolled back or change? Look, I I think there's no question that in every single one of the places where people can spy on you and where they've sworn they won't spy on you, they are spying on you. Yes. And do I include the FBI and every government agency in that? Heck yeah. Look, I think any chance that people have to spy on you, it doesn't matter what they say. I don't care. I think they did a thing in the FBI where they had some technology where they could go into people's records. But it was only with a court order and they could never use it for personal use. And then they checked them. Almost every single one of them used it for personal use. Wow. Everyone. They checked on their girlfriends, they checked on their boyfriends. Yeah. Yeah. They were like, so do I believe them? No. No, I don't. And do I believe that we have any privacy left in this world? Not really. Do you want to know the truth, Mike? I mean, do I think, you know, aren't there computers that listen to you and change the algorithm based on what you've said? I'm always shocked at the ads I get in my my my feeds. They're listening to you. Yes. And do, you know, does does someone have access to that? I go with a yes. And are they going to use that if they need to? Why, yes, they are. So, you know, when you ask about has anyone gone too far? Has anyone not gone too far?
SPEAKER_01So is this just the reality we live in or the things the state can do to protect people?
SPEAKER_00I don't know. And that's the truth. Because I look at this and I think, oh, you know, I I believe in transparency, but I also believe in privacy. Right. And do I think that exists? I I'm really very unsure. And, you know, as somebody who is running for governor, do I believe in privacy? No. Yeah, you have no chance at it anymore. But I think for the average person, I think they're if they're a step behind me, it's only a step.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. That's the truth. Uh let me ask sort of a broader question. So to take a look at the.
SPEAKER_00Maybe I've been watching too many movies though. I mean, you see those movies and it's like they can go anywhere.
SPEAKER_01Someone knows exactly which movies you've been watching. Uh broader question. So 10,000 feet. Um, what's a policy area where you think the public conversation in California is overly simplified or misleading? And what's the nuance that's missing?
SPEAKER_00I would say that in almost every policy area, that's true, honestly, Mike. I think the one I'm just gonna go with one specifically, which we don't even talk about, and when we do, I think it really is in sort of cartoonish simplicity. And that is about climate change, energy, environmentalism, and business. That connection together. And the truth is California, by and large, has invented technologies to produce energy and produce and use energy much more inexpensively than fossil fuels. Much cheaper that will save us a boatload of money that continue to get much cheaper. And when I hear that fossil fuels are cheap, I want to go, just to be clear, that is an effing lie. And I want to say that's just on the face of it, that's before they start paying for their pollution. There's no reason the oil companies should burn down Altadena and Pacific Palisades while they're making trillions of dollars and not pay for their pollution. We just spent, I think, $200 billion, not just Californians, but Americans' tax money. We're 12% of that. To protect the oil industry by blowing up Iran. Is that anyone paying for that? Are the oil companies paying for that? Or by the way, are the taxpayers paying for that? The taxpayers. Donald Trump asked for $1.5 trillion of military expenditure basically to protect the oil industry. Fossil fuels are way too expensive, in including in ways that no one counts. So we need to start talking about the need to actually move quicker to cheaper things that happen to be clean because the tech has moved there. And we need to make the polluters pay, put environmental justice up front with people from that community in leadership positions, and then we need to deploy the heck out of the clean technology that we've that we have invented that is cheaper, that will let us build big companies, lead the world, and by the way, do the right thing.
SPEAKER_01Final question. We live in really challenging times. We've got neighbors who are being seized off the streets by federal agents. We've got people who are hurting economically, we've got uh sort of pillars of of our democratic institutions which are sort of collapsing.
SPEAKER_00Uh we've got just a lot of people. Which ones do you think about pillars for democratic institutions that are collapsing? Name any of them, right?
SPEAKER_01Um we've got um uh people who are are are really losing faith that the system can work for them. They think politics is poison, nothing happens. They're they're getting cynical, they're they're they they just don't believe that the system can work. Uh clearly you feel otherwise, otherwise you wouldn't be running for office. Where do you get your faith?
SPEAKER_00Well, for well, let me say a couple of things. One thing that is true in running for governor, and my whole job as far as I'm concerned is to try and look as many Californians in the eye as possible and listen to them and hear about the life they're living, the issues they're confronting, but also how great they are. So if you go around this state, I don't care what these people say in the newspapers, I don't care what these people say on TV, I don't care what they say online. Californians are really hardworking, they're really sincere, they have really good values. That is what I see. And I think what we need is to agree together of what we're trying to accomplish, which I describe as shared prosperity, and accomplish some things and get some momentum and prove that government can work to make people's lives better, and to remind ourselves that we can succeed as a people, the people of California. And so that is a huge part of this. And so, you know, that is. I also, you know, it's funny. I called my mother when I was 30 years old. I said, Mom, you're not gonna be. She's dead. Sorry. I called her and I said, Mom, you're not gonna, she's very religious. I said, You're not gonna believe this. I believe in God. She goes, Sonny, don't sound so smug. An awful lot of people are much smarter than you have believed in God. But I and I believe in it that look, there is a force for goodness in this world that is very broad and includes the people of California. And that if we hook into that as a people and we hook at that as individuals, however you want to express it, wherever it comes from, we can trust in that and we can do amazing things more than we know.
SPEAKER_01Tom Steiner, thanks so much for joining me.
SPEAKER_00Mike, thank you very much for having me.
SPEAKER_01And that's it for this episode of What's Next Los Angeles. My thanks to Tom Snyder for joining me. My thanks to Tonya We see us for editing and producing, and of course, my thanks to LA Ford for sponsoring this podcast. Please also tune in to our sister podcast, LA Podcast, where I become part of a stable of co-hosts and we discuss and analyze the latest news about politics, policy, and government in the LA area. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts. And this week, we focused on the influence of dark money in Los Angeles City politics. You can check that out on the latest LA podcast, or you can also check out my substack for an in-depth story that I've been writing. That's it for today. Stay tuned for more episodes also of What's Next Los Angeles. Until then, thank you for joining me. Peace and take good care.