Looking ahead if Xavier Becerra wins California | KTVU

Politics here, a Republican strategist down, I guess, our neighbor to the south, Matt Klink, here. You really look at the Republican side of things, and I'd like to start by, first of all, welcoming you in and thanking you for your time today, Matt. Thank you. Thanks for being here. How good of a job do you think Republicans have done in our state for this election overall? Well, I mean, in California, the bar is pretty low, given that Republicans plus declined to states don't equal the number of Democrats. So, you know, again, you know, Republicans were active in local governments across California. We've largely been redistricted out of Sacramento and Washington, D.C. And, you know, Steve Hilton has run a great race, but Javier Becerra is probably going to get close to 60% of the vote tonight and the race will be declared over at 8:01 p.m. So, you know, it depends how you measure success. If it's wins and losses, probably not that successful. So does the Republican's mission change under a different Democratic governor? Well, look, politics is all about power. And right now, the Democrats hold super majorities in the legislature and every single constitutional office in the state, which means that they don't have to listen to the Republicans on anything. They can pass a budget without Republican votes. They set priorities in the state largely without Republican input. And again, the way that the districts are gerrymandered by people in Sacramento, I think that that creates some huge problems and it really disenfranchises the 35 to 40 percent of Californians who are Republican. It just removes any chance of a voice we have in decisions. And let's face it, the state's not that well run right now. Let's look ahead to what happens if, some people say, when Javier Becerra is named governor. What changes do you expect to see him, what changes would you like to see him make? Well, like to see him make and make are two different concepts. So I think let's be real. Javier Becerra has largely stayed out of the public spotlight because he knows that unless he does something of a monumental mess up, he has this election in the bag. And he's done that. He stayed out of the spotlight. But what he also hasn't done is he also has not set an agenda for When he goes to Sacramento, and that means that all of the members of the legislature, the Democrats in particular, they all have ideas that they want to implement, and they haven't gotten any direction from the man who's going to be the chief executive of the largest state in the union. So what I think he's going to do, I think that he's going to raise taxes. I think that he is going to engage in Massive health care spending, including and not but not limited to for people who are in this country illegally, irrespective of the costs. I mean, look, Gavin Newsom tried it and he realized that, one, there were a heck of a lot more people in this country illegally that needed health care and it was more expensive than even he anticipated. So... Javier Becerra is going to need massive sources of revenue to do that. And if you look at any lessons from today, it's going to be that, you know, Politicians talk about affordability until they want to spend money on some government program, then they always find a way to dig deeper into your pocket. Let's talk about money and digging into your pocket. It was less than a week ago here we saw Republican Steve Hilton promising $3 a gallon gas. I'm paying close to $7, right, and I'm making the most out of every drop. Some people say it's disingenuous for him to promise $3 gasoline. How do you think he would do that? a couple of ways that it's at least drop it substantially. California has the highest gas taxes in the nation. Um, we also have the most expensive gas to make in the nation and that's not because the oil companies say we're going to make expensive gas in California. That's because the regulatory state up in Sacramento and agencies like the California Air Resources Board and the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, they heap loads and loads of incredibly costly regulations that drive up the cost per gallon. gasoline. And Sacramento put Sacramento put gas tax increases on autopilot. Again, this is the pitfall of one party governance. They put gas taxes on autopilot. So every year On July 1, gas taxes go up, and you can thank Sacramento Democrats for that. Tax increase. All right. Let me ask you one more question here about Prop 40. Since we're talking about money, it's not $6 a gallon gas these guys and gals are worried about. It's the billionaire tax. Do you think Prop 40 will go down in defeat as recent polls suggest it will? And what impact do you think that could have on our state? So, yeah, I mean, look, the. Prop 40, first of all, it's questionably if it's even legal, which is the so-called billionaire's tax, whether you can tax wealth, not income. That being said, the Democrats nationally and in California, they're constantly scheming to get more money into the system. Right now, it looks like it's going to go down to defeat. But I think that how it loses It's going to be very indicative of whether or not this gets tried again. And I will point out to everyone who's watching us, the income tax in 1912 was started as a temporary tax paid on income for the super wealthy. And look where it is now. Once you let government's nose under the camel's tent. They never want to leave. Wow. All right. Interesting metaphor. I have to share, Matt, my two young sons worked at the neighborhood pool over the summer, and I think they were making, you know, $19 an hour or whatever. When they got that first paycheck, they go, wait a minute, that's not $19 times all the hours I worked. And I said, boy, welcome to taxes. Thank you so much for your time, Matt Klink, a longtime Republican strategist, joining us from Southern California. Thank you for your time and your insight on this election day. Thanks a million. Thank you so much. All right, we'll go ahead and take things back inside the newsroom. I have to take a short break, have a lot to get to. It looks like we will be talking one-on-one with Representative Latifah Simon in just two minutes on exciting news on this election day. Just found that out. So I'll pass that along to you. We'll get her online and then have that talk live as it develops. Stay with me here. I'll see you back in two minutes.