Transcript: Tom Steyer Says That He’s A Good Billionaire

This is a lightly edited transcript of the March 9 edition of Right Now With Perry Bacon. You can watch the video here or by following this show on YouTube or Substack.

Perry Bacon: This is the New Republic show Right Now. I’m honored to be joined by Tom Steyer, who is running for governor in the great and very large state of California. Tom, welcome.

Tom Steyer: Good morning, Perry.

Bacon: I’m going to start with—I’m going to ask this bluntly. Billionaires are right now destroying America in some ways—Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, I can go through a long list. I’ve liked a lot of what you’ve said on the trail, but convince me that I should trust anybody who is a billionaire to do the right thing.

Steyer: So let me say this. I started a business a long time ago. I ran it for 27 years. It did better than I could have expected. I walked away from it 14 years ago. I’ve spent the last 14 years being an advocate for economic and environmental justice. My wife and I have taken a pledge to give away the bulk of our money while we’re alive, and I can assure you I will not die a billionaire. That in fact, I have put in the work and spent the time.

We have a 20-person policy group in Sacramento. We’ve been involved over the last 10 years with virtually every policy decision in the state of California, and I’ve taken on moneyed interests repeatedly when no one else was willing to. I’ve beaten the oil companies and the tobacco companies and out-of-state companies who were messing with our state income tax and made them pay their fair share.

It’s not like I quit my job yesterday and started running today. For 14 years I’ve been doing this—and actually, for longer than that, I’ve been working on progressive causes. From my standpoint, I’ve put in my time. I know this state, I’ve been working on it for a long time, and my behavior has been consistent in every one of those. I have always been representing working people. I have always been working for fairness and justice.

I agree—I understand why people are angry at the high-profile, arrogant billionaires who seem to think they should run everything, that they are perfect and [you should] just shut up and put them in control. Everybody’s offended by that, and I’m offended by that too.

Bacon: Talk about—I think it’s good that politics has moved to affordability. That can be a buzzword, but I actually think that’s what people are hoping from politicians, that they make their lives better. Particularly in California. I’m in Kentucky—housing prices are not the way they are in California—and I have some friends who live there. Talk about what you can do—not just housing—to reduce prices and make things more affordable in California.

Steyer: What you’re saying, Perry, is really true. When we think about affordability, people can’t pay their bills. “Affordability” is a fancy word, but people can’t pay their bills. And by the way, the rise in gasoline prices is just making that much harder. So what does affordability look like?

The number one issue is housing. We’ve had a government failure in the state of California for decades, where we have way underbuilt housing, which means there’s way too much competition for every house, which means rents are too high and the ability to purchase a house has moved beyond most people. The average age for someone to buy their first house has gone from 28 to 42 years old.

Bacon: Oh, wow. OK.

Steyer: Yeah. So when we talk about the ability to afford living in California, it starts with housing. It’s such a big part of everybody’s budget. I’ve said I’m for rent control, because we have a huge government failure and we need a government response. I’ve said we’ll build a million houses in four years—and that’s not a silver bullet, where you do this one thing and everything is good. It’s silver buckshot: We have multiple places where we have to address this in urgent fashion so that we can build houses.

But I’ve also said I’d break up the electric—I’d introduce competition to our electric monopolies. We pay twice as much for electricity as the average in the United States. Why? They’re monopolies—that’s what monopolies do. I want to introduce competition. I’m for single-payer healthcare, because we’re looking at healthcare costs that are eating everybody in this state: every person, every business, and the state budget itself. I have a response on affordability as you go through each section, and I’m someone who has always gotten results in this life. In business, I got results. I’ve beaten the big corporate interests. When I say I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it.

Bacon: I’m not [for] bashing other candidates, but I do want to ask—there’s a big field. How are you different than the other candidates?

Steyer: I think for one thing, nobody can buy me. And so that means I can take on the special interests. When I say I’m going to take on the electric monopolies—from what I hear, they’re going to run independent expenditures against me and for other candidates. Because you know what monopolies like? Monopolies! If you’re going to take them on, they have a lot of money too, because they’re monopolies.

Bacon: Yes.

Steyer: Other candidates have been reluctant to take them on. I’ve asked everybody to sign on to some of the things I’m doing that are going after funded corporate interests that are taking advantage of California, and so far nobody has. I’m talking about closing a multi-decade corporate real estate tax loophole that’s worth $22 billion to the state of California. I’ve asked all the other candidates to please sign on to that, because it’s important that we do that to fill in some of the holes that the Trump administration is trying to punch in our budget. No one signed on.

So why am I different? I have a long history of pushing on all of these issues. I’m willing to take on the funded corporate interests. I have no conflicts. I am for working people—that’s going to be consistent. I’m for organized labor—that’s going to be consistent. When we think about California, working people have gotten the shaft for about 45 years. That’s what the statistics say overwhelmingly. It’s about time we redress that. It’s not fair, what’s gone on, and people are at the breaking point. “Affordability” is just a way of saying we can’t afford to pay to live here, and we’re not really living—we’re trying to just survive. That’s not good enough. People are supposed to be able to live and have the California dream, and that’s what I’m trying to restore.

Bacon: I know there’s a proposal out there one of my colleagues wrote about, about potentially having a billionaire tax on their wealth on the ballot in California. And I think there have been some reasonable arguments that that’s going to encourage people to leave the state and so on. Talk about your view on that and your alternative views about how we can raise revenue in California.

Steyer: I know we have to tax corporations. I’ve proposed closing this real estate tax loophole. That will bring in more money over the first five years—and it’s permanent—than the so-called billionaire tax. I’m in favor of taxing billionaires; I just want to go further. That is a one-time fix. What I’m talking about is having a fair tax system where people pay their fair share going forward.... Look, we have an incredibly dynamic, entrepreneurial economy. I love that. But success is not 12 trillionaires and 40 million people who can’t make rent. That is not success.

If we’re going to succeed—and at some level we really are succeeding—we need to bring everybody along. That’s really the system I’m talking about: where we don’t abandon people, where we take our education system back to a top-10 in the country. We need to do that. If you’re going to be a successful state, you’ve got to be doing that, and we need to do that, and we can’t forget that. So to a very large extent, what I’m talking about doing is keeping our dynamism, keeping our growth rate, doing all of that—but doing it in a way that’s fair and just and everybody goes along for what I call shared prosperity.

Bacon: Talk about Governor Newsom. What kind of job do you think he’s done?

Steyer: I think everybody in California appreciates the job that Governor Newsom is doing standing up for California and against the Trump administration. And this is a very different time than when he came in. For eight years he tried to stand up for his values. I’m not angry at him. But the real point is: It’s a different time. We need to be addressing the issues that exist today. That’s really what I’m trying to talk about: how we go from here, honestly, to deal with affordability; honestly, to deal with our schools; honestly, to restore the California dream that everybody wants.

Bacon: I wanted to talk about issues that affect California, so I’m glad we spoke about that. But I do want to finish by talking about ... Governor Newsom has done a good job being a national figure—filing lawsuits and really standing up against Trump. How do you view that part of the job? California is the biggest state, almost like an anti-Trump defender. Are you going to use that perch, and how do you see that perch?

Steyer: One thing I’m sure you remember, Perry—just joking—is that I got 8 million signatures to impeach Trump in 2017 and 2018, the Need to Impeach [campaign], because I could look and see he was breaking the law every day. It was a corrupt administration, and that if he really got his hooks into the United States, it could be really dramatic—which is in fact what happened. The Democrats hated me for collecting those 8 million signatures. But I think it’s turned out that what I expected to happen has happened.

But when I think about California, the way that we win on every level is actually by succeeding—showing the country that we are a just state, we’re successful state; that this is a state that loves small-d democracy, that loves freedom, that treats people with compassion and decency. That’s who we stand for. And we’re going to make that point and succeed doing that. When people look at us and they look at the Trump administration, they’re going to see a successful society that’s thriving.

And so I always say to people: When we think about this, we need to channel the Civil Rights Movement, because they were fighting a corrupt, violent government conspiracy, and the way that they won was by being organized, being clear on message, and in fact showing the world—this is the way you’re supposed to be. This is the kind of America you want.

When I think about how we’re going to succeed, to a very large extent the way that we’re going to combat attacks and violence is really what Minnesota ultimately did. To show that this is who we are—the law-abiding, democracy-loving, successful, growing state. And the other side is a very clear contrast, and you really have to ask yourself which side you want to be on.

Bacon: That’s a great place to end. Thank you. That was Tom Steyer, running for governor of California. Great message—good to see you. Thank you.

Steyer: Nice to see you, Perry. Thank you.