Working Families Priced Out of California’s Economy. Xavier Becerra Sounds Alarm

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]California governor's race seems to be turning into a three-way fight. The latest tracking poll commissioned by the California Democratic Party conducted for May 14th through 16th has GOP candidate Steve Hilton and Democratic candidate and former state attorney general and the health and human services secretary Xavier Bera tied for the lead each with 22% of the vote.

[00:00:19]Coming in third is billionaire Tom Starr at 15%. California has a jungle primary, meaning it's not Republican primary, Democratic primary, it's the top two v vote getters. And joining us right now is Xavier Bera. Glad to have you here on Roland Martin unfiltered. Um it has been uh topsyturvy. Early on, former Congresswoman Katie Porter was in the lead. Then of course, you had uh former Congressman Eric Swallwell. Then all of a sudden, uh allegations hit him. He has to drop out. Uh a lot of people have been saying is too many Democrats in the race. more folks should be dropping out.

[00:00:53]I think Lieutenant Governor also or or another candidate dropped out. Uh so it's a whole lot going on. Uh so how do you cut through all of that in order for you to land those top two spots?

[00:01:07]>> So Roland first, thanks for having me.

[00:01:09]By the way, X like an H in my case. So Javier, but uh >> Javier got the way you do it.

[00:01:14]>> Yeah.

[00:01:15]>> Yeah. And the way you do it is by giving people the confidence that you actually know what you're going to do because uh with all the crises that we're facing, whether it's the affordability crisis that everyone's facing back home or it's the man-made crisis coming out of Washington DC, you want someone who don't won't need training wheels the moment they walk into the governor's office. And I've had an opportunity whether as the former secretary of health and human services during the COVID pandemic or as the attorney general for California when Trump was president the first time or or as a member of Congress for 24 years. I've been there. I've done that and I can say that I can get us out of crisis. So I think people are hearing that it sticks and I think that's why I was able to jump up in the polls and now lead in the polls.

[00:01:59]Um obviously uh affordability is the dominant issue uh in every political race across the country. Uh there are some who say California it is way too expensive. Uh people are leaving the state. What what what can you do as governor to address that issue for California voters?

[00:02:19]>> Yeah, that's job one is to address the affordability crisis. So, we've the legislature fortunately and our current Governor Nuomo, they've worked hard to try to make it easier to build homes in California to reduce the pressure, the demand, and therefore help reduce the price. That should help housing become more affordable. We have to make sure that we're continuing to provide health care to our population. As you know, Roland, when the Trump administration cut a trillion dollars out of the health care system by gutting Medicaid, uh he makes it hard. In California, there are about 3 million Californians who are set to lose their health insurance coverage as a result of Donald Trump. We're not going to go there if I become governor.

[00:02:59]We're going to continue to provide healthcare because it's pennywise, pound foolish, to cut people off of having access to a pediatrician or a family family doc because ultimately they're going to get their healthcare. They're just going to go to the ER, the most expensive place to do healthcare at the end of the day. So, we're going to do the things that keep California moving forward, make it more affordable. If you want to come to California, we want you.

[00:03:22]If you're already here, we want you to stay. Housing also is a dominant issue as well. And we've seen the prices explode. Uh if if Governor, how do you uh help spur um frankly um housing, but affordable housing in the state?

[00:03:40]We have right now housing affordable housing units that are ready to go. They are shovel ready.

[00:03:50]They've passed through their permitting requirements. They have pencil out. The only thing missing is enough money to put shovel in ground. And so one of the things that I've said on this campaign is in my first 100 days, I've already told some of the legislators in California that I'm going to be working with them to make sure that we help get these uh projects underway, shovel in ground so people have confidence to know that we are actually going to build the units that we need for folks who need to have affordable housing available to them. That's one thing. Secondly, I'm going to boost these programs that already are in place. I just got to expand them that make down payment assistance more possible for a lot of families because most families in California when they're renting they're essentially paying a mortgage every month. It's just they're paying the mortgage for somebody else, the landlord. Why not pay it so you can own the place? And so if we can help with down payment assistance because that's the only thing that most of these families lack, we'll be able to make them homeowners. And the most important thing as you know about that is that if you want to ever generate wealth, you need to start owning assets that appreciate in value. And that's typically your home. If you go paycheck to paycheck living off of your income, what you earn every month, you're never going to have the wealth that you need to get ready for retirement. So, I really want to boost home ownership in California so we can have families build wealth. And that's really crucial in the black community and the brown community because too many of our families don't have the opportunity to own their own home.

[00:05:17]>> You've got this uh one-time um tax increase uh for billionaires is going to be on the ballot in November as well.

[00:05:24]And uh you've got a lot of billionaires who are mad upset threatening to leave the state. I mean it is stunning to me uh to listen to the the the the co-founders of Google. I mean, people with gobs and gobs and gobs of money, uh, when these companies, uh, when you look at the tax rate that they actually pay, it's virtually nothing. Uh, they don't give themselves salary. They live off of capital means. I mean, my god.

[00:05:52]Uh, like you're losing your mind over a 5% one-time tax.

[00:05:58]>> Yeah. Well, it's one of those things where if you've got it, you don't want to give it up. uh and tax policy, whether you're a billionaire or you're making minimum wage, you nobody likes taxes. And so we have to recognize that.

[00:06:12]>> Well, no. No, nobody likes taxes until they need something from the state. And so when they need roads and bridges and infrastructure or when there's a natural disaster, it's amazing how they then would love some taxpayer money.

[00:06:26]>> Yeah. It's like this conversation where people are saying we should suspend the gas tax. Well, then how are you going to fix the roads and uh retrofit the bridges and make sure the potholes are are filled? You you need the revenues to make that happen. And so, you're right.

[00:06:41]People understand that we pay taxes so we can have an infrastructure in our society on this billionaire uh uh initiative. Uh the difficulty I think is that it's a one-time deal and we need to have tax policy. as I tell people and I served on the ways and means committee for four for 20 years. That's the tax writing committee in in the House of Representatives. Uh you need to have tax policy that is fair, that's predictable, and that's stable. And unfortunately, this initiative, I think, is going to ultimately have a difficult time because it's not predictable and it's not stable. It only is a one-time deal. Most of the money goes for healthcare, which is good, but I guarantee you we need money for our schools. We need money to help build our homes. And so my sus my suspicion is that it will have a difficult time once people look a little bit closer into. But will we need to make sure if we need revenue, we get it from folks who aren't paying their fair share? Absolutely. And it's there's no doubt that billionaires are not paying their fair share. As you mentioned, Roland, chances are most billionaires are paying at a lower effective tax rate uh than our, you know, that teacher, that firefighter, that nurse, that police officer. And no one who is making millions or billions should be paying less in effective tax rates than someone who's in one of those four professionals.

[00:07:59]>> Data data centers uh uh have been talked about all around the country. Uh and a lot of people uh don't like uh some of these data centers getting billions of dollars and millions of dollars uh in tax breaks from states and local governments. What is your position on tax breaks for data centers?

[00:08:20]Well, I think data centers can be uh California is home to the tech industry.

[00:08:28]California is home to AI and California will continue to benefit from having AI.

[00:08:35]We have to do more to make sure we know where it's going to go and benefits the communities that are in California. And so if data centers are going to be located here, it should be because they are being good community partners, which means not only are they paying their fair share, but they should help a community build up its infrastructure, whether it's on the electricity, whether it's on the water. We want to make sure that if AI is coming to California, that it is doing more than just uh soaking up the energy it needs without doing its fair share to help the surrounding communities prosper as well. So we'll we'll make sure that uh we continue to have tech AI come to California do right by California and the industry will do well as well.

[00:09:20]Um but how do you also protect water supply um electric costs? Uh those a lot of been the criticism we've heard from so many other places where people I there was a congressional hearing the other day uh and Congressman Alexandria Alasio Cortez held up bottles of extremely dirty water that has infected uh whales in one particular state.

[00:09:45]>> Yeah. So that that's why why I said that if they're going to locate in California, they have to help us with our infrastructure whether it's on the water side or whether it's on the electricity side. So when they come in, uh, they will understand that they have to be com complete and good community partners, which means that we won't have those circumstances where they're leaving dirty water. In fact, they will help us build out our water infrastructure. They will help us build out our grid and our electrical uh uh capacity. And if if if they're not willing to do that, then there are plenty of places they can locate. But having California benefit from the technology industry and AI industry is a good thing so long as we work as partners to make sure everyone benefits from this. And I will say this uh because I think most people understand this. California already is the fourth largest economy in the world. Just the state of California by itself. It ranks only behind the US overall, China and Japan. And then after Japan, the the the biggest economic force in the world is the state of California. And part of that is because of the tech industry.

[00:10:58]And so we benefit from that. But we have to make sure the benefits of that go to all folks. But as we just finished talking about housing, there too many families in California can't even afford to buy a house. And so we may be the fourth largest economy in the world with a lot of prosperity, but it's clearly not getting to enough people. That's what we got to change because we want it to be that the 40 million people of California can all believe they're going to prosper from everything that all the assets that California brings to the table.

[00:11:25]>> All right, then Javier Brera, we certainly appreciate it. Uh, good luck in this campaign. The primary is June 2nd.

[00:11:32]>> June second coming soon.

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