CA Governor Candidate Steve Hilton on Why California is Destroying Itself & How a Republican Can Win

What It Covers

California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, a naturalized American citizen and former UK Prime Minister adviser, outlines a Republican path to winning California's 2026 governor's race through a flat tax restructuring, CEQA reform, oil production expansion, education accountability tied to Mississippi's phonics model, and dismantling the homeless industrial complex.

Key Questions Answered

• •Tax restructuring: Hilton proposes zero state income tax for households earning under $100,000 — covering roughly 7 million California households — and a 7.5% flat tax above that threshold. The total revenue reduction of approximately $60 billion returns the state budget to pre-pandemic 2019 levels, requiring no cuts beyond reversing pandemic-era spending that permanently baked itself into the baseline.
• •Government waste quantification: Cal Doge, Hilton's California-focused government efficiency initiative, analyzed published state auditor data and Medicaid error rates across five years, estimating $425 billion total in fraud, waste, and abuse — roughly $80 billion annually, or approximately 20% of the $349 billion state budget. Specific examples include $928 million of a $1 billion solar panel fund diverted to Democrat-aligned nonprofits.
• •Housing cost drivers: Three structural forces inflate California construction costs to two to three times neighboring states: climate-mandate building codes requiring EV charging infrastructure and solar panels, CEQA litigation where 70% of lawsuits are filed by unions as leverage to force prevailing-wage project labor agreements, and per-unit impact fees averaging $30,000 compared to under $1,000 in Texas, producing three times fewer housing units per capita.
• •Energy policy contradiction: California imports nearly 80% of its oil — primarily from Iraq and South America — after reducing domestic production through permit denials via the CalGEM agency, while counting tanker carbon emissions only from 12 miles offshore. Hilton argues a governor can reverse this without legislative approval by appointing pro-energy CalGEM leadership, with industry estimates suggesting production could double every two years.
• •Education accountability model: California spends $27,000 per student annually yet only 47% meet basic English standards and 35% meet math standards. Mississippi achieves dramatically better results at one-third the per-student cost by mandating phonics-based reading instruction, requiring students to pass a reading benchmark before advancing from third grade, and publicly grading individual teachers and schools to enable performance-based rewards and removals.
• •Homelessness enforcement framework: The 2024 Supreme Court ruling in Grants Pass v. Oregon eliminated the legal barrier California cities used to avoid clearing encampments. Hilton's three-part plan mandates street clearance with a gubernatorial deadline, requires 100% sobriety for any state homeless services, and redirects funding from $900,000-per-door permanent housing units into large-scale mental health facilities by applying the existing federal IMD Medicaid waiver California has not yet claimed.