00:00We need to do something urgently in this country to address the radical imbalance of fortunes in
00:05America. Something is fundamentally broken if we can mint a trillionaire overnight, but millions
00:11and millions of people go without health care. If a truck driver pays a larger percentage of his
00:16income in taxes than a factory owner. I spoke recently about the need for a national billionaire's
00:22tax, about ending corporate tax loopholes, about making sure working people benefit from the boom
00:28in AI technology. In short, we need to democratize our economy if we're going to save our democracy.
00:35Today, I want to tell you about what we've done, what we've done here in California on these very
00:40issues. And I want to take a moment to also challenge, challenge a myth that simply won't
00:46go away. It's been peddled in this country for decades and decades, and it goes something like
00:51this. You have to choose, choose between being fiscally disciplined and doing big things. Pick
00:57one. They tell you, but you can't, you can't have both. In California, where I'm from, we reject false
01:03choices. We have one of the most progressive tax structures in America, and our budget, it's balanced.
01:10Our rainy day reserves are full, and we think big, really big. Over the past eight years, we've built
01:16great things for the people of California. Some of the boldest actions of any government in this
01:22country that has been taken in a generation. And we did this without breaking the bank. We did this
01:28by design. I just signed, just signed my final budget as governor of California, on time, balanced,
01:35and structurally sound. Not just this year, but through June of 2028. For the next two years,
01:41California will have a zero dollar deficit. We're leaving the state in good hands for the next
01:46governor. Since 2019, the state's economy grew from $3 trillion to $4.25 trillion. That's a roughly
01:5440% growth. No other jurisdiction, not one in the United States came close. In 2025, California attracted
02:02nearly two thirds of all venture capital invested in America, and nearly 40% of all venture capital
02:08invested worldwide. California, we dominate. We have no peers. And California thrives because we've laid
02:16the foundation for one of the healthiest economies in the world with intentionality. Extraordinary
02:21schools, universities that feed into world-class research labs, and unicorn startups, new manufacturing,
02:26small businesses supported by California tax credit, and boosted by a career pipeline we developed
02:32and we've nurtured. Now, here's the part, again, that cynics don't want you to hear. And we did all of
02:37that, again, balancing the budget. But at the same time, we also paid down long-term obligations,
02:42some $15 billion in long-term pension debt. And we're carrying nearly $30 billion in total reserves
02:49and closer, actually, to $40 billion, counting the surplus account. We could have spent every dollar
02:54this year and called it a victory. We didn't. We left a runway for whoever comes next, because that's
03:00what responsible government does. And we did something else big. In recent days, working with the
03:05legislature, we reached an agreement to place a constitutional amendment before the voters to expand
03:11California's rainy day fund. We're expanding our reserves, at the same time allowing the state
03:16more flexibility to pay down those long-term liabilities and protect our state's fiscal
03:22stability well into the future. But fiscal discipline isn't just about what you do at budget time. It's
03:28also about, well, how government works every day in every department. That's why I launched an
03:33initiative here in California called E3, Efficiency, Effectiveness, Excellence. The premise is
03:40quite simple. Government should work better, work faster, and cost less for the people who pay for
03:46it. We've been cutting outdated regulations, consolidating duplicative programs, modernizing
03:51the technology that Californians use to interact with their government, saving taxpayers dollars
03:58across every department. Washington, they made a spectacle out of efficiency, slashing programs
04:05without thought, firing veterans, gutting agencies that families depend on. Well, we've been doing
04:10real work here, methodically, without the chaos, without the theater. So when people ask, well,
04:17where did the money go? Let me tell you exactly where it went. We made school meals free for every
04:24single child, breakfast and lunch, no forms, no stigma, no shame. The first state in the nation to do it,
04:31and we're keeping it. We created universal transitional kindergarten, a fully funded grade for every
04:38four-year-old, saving thousands and thousands of families money each and every year. We boosted
04:45funding for our public schools from about $17,000 to more than $28,000 for each student in every
04:52classroom. That's a 60% increase. And this year, we passed the largest special education investment
04:58in state's history, $2.4 billion more in a single year. We expanded health care coverage, drove the
05:06uninsured rate, get this, down to 5.9%. That's one of the lowest in the United States. And I want
05:13to
05:13pause on that for a second. Texas, just another big state, has, as an example point of contrast,
05:1916.7% of its population without health insurance. 5.9% California, 16.7 in Texas. Texas, the highest
05:30in the country. That's not fiscal discipline. That's just, respectfully, cruelty. California rejects
05:36these false choices. Within the nation and community schools, a revolutionary idea that has
05:42transformed literally hundreds and hundreds of campuses across California with rigorous academics
05:48tutoring, healthcare services, as well as counseling, all on one site, producing measurable academic
05:56improvements. Within the nation, an after-school for all and summer school for all, programs
06:01benefiting more than a million students, programs other states only talk about, and we've funded
06:06at scale. We've created 130,000 free and reduced-cost childcare slots. That's the largest expansion
06:14of childcare in the nation. Thousands more in the budget I just signed, saving parents
06:20thousands of dollars a year. We made the biggest infrastructure investments in modern California
06:26history. Let me give you a proof. $109 billion are at work today. $109 billion. That's part
06:32of a $180 billion 10-year plan without precedent in California. Roads, bridges, water, transit.
06:40We connected, as well, the state with the largest broadband investment we've ever made. We all
06:46know this. A kid without an internet connection is locked out of the future, whether she's from
06:51Compton or the Central Valley. We built the clean energy future in real time, a record-breaking
06:57two-thirds, two-thirds of our electrical power now comes from renewable and zero-carbon sources.
07:04In the last seven years alone, we've added 32 gigawatts of clean energy capacity. And put
07:10that in perspective, that's roughly a third of all the power California has ever built
07:15since the 19th century, a third of the total in just seven years, proving that you can power
07:23one of the biggest economies in the world, clean the air, and fight climate change at the same time.
07:28We're also sending up to $60 billion in utility rebates back to Californians, funded by our cap
07:33and invest program. Not a tax on family, a fee on polluters. Distributed back, money going directly
07:40to working families to lower the cost of their electricity bills. Climate policy and affordability
07:46policy, the same policy. We built the largest aerial firefighting fleet in the world, invested in
07:53cutting-edge technologies, equipment, and firefighters to help knock down the next big fire when it
07:58starts. We led the largest expansion, bar none, the largest expansion of mental health and drug
08:04treatment facilities in the nation, helping families in distress and keeping people off the streets.
08:11We've moved to close five prisons, five, while crime rates have plunged to near record lows. And we've
08:19made record-breaking investments in Californians, colleges, and universities. You may not know this.
08:2665% of our UC and CSU graduates now leave debt-free with a world-class education. We've launched CalKids,
08:37making every kid in California eligible for a college and career savings account. A head start in the
08:42cost of higher education or starting a business. Five and a half million Californians born with a stake
08:48in their own future. We built a service corps larger now than the Peace Corps. And we've expanded
08:55apprenticeship programs for hundreds of thousands, over 600,000 people now training for great paying
09:02jobs. We've raised the minimum wage. No state comes close to $20 an hour fast food workers, $25 an hour
09:10for
09:10health care workers. We expanded paid sick leave. So every Californian has at least five days. We expanded
09:17paid family leave and made wage replacement progressive so that a working mother taking
09:23time to care for a newborn or a sick parent doesn't lose her paycheck. And we put in place the
09:28strongest
09:28and most comprehensive statewide renter protections in America. We capped rent increases. We made it the
09:37law in California that no landlord can evict a tenant who has paid her rent and followed the rules
09:42for no reason at all. Just cause. That's what other states call it. We made it the standard. Because
09:50in this state, we believe a roof over your head is not a luxury. It's the foundation for everything else.
09:56And we took on the housing crisis where it actually lives at the supply side. Streamlining reforms,
10:02permitting reforms, zoning reform. We made it easier in California to build. And since 2019,
10:09residential construction in California has grown by 59%. We're building more homes faster than we have
10:16in a generation. We've also made historic investments to confront homelessness. Across California
10:22communities, with the new 2025 counts, unsheltered homelessness fell nearly 10%. It's the biggest drop
10:30in more than 15 years in our state. Even, by the way, as homelessness has risen all across America,
10:36at least in more than half of the states. Count those up. Free meals, free pre-K, free childcare,
10:42record school funding, healthcare, infrastructure, broadband, clean energy, utility rebates, higher
10:48wages, paid leave, renter protections, more homes built, debt-free college, a savings account for every
10:55kid. That's government that believes in itself and balanced its budget every step of the way.
11:00Because here's the truth. Balancing a budget and doing big things, take the exact same skill.
11:06Both demand the long view. Both demand telling people the truth about costs. Both demand the
11:12nerve to invest today in something you won't get credit for until tomorrow. We've been told for
11:18decades that austerity is discipline. It's not. Austerity is a failure of imagination dressed up
11:25as a virtue. We choose differently. We choose to be responsible and bold, to honor the dollar and
11:31honor the dream, to balance the books and to keep the big dreams. I'm not telling you all of this
11:39to
11:39brag about California, though I'm proud. I'm telling you this because for 40 years in this country,
11:46we've been told that government can't deliver, that public investments don't work, that progressive
11:51ideas never pencil out. Well, California, with all due respect, is proof that all that's wrong.
11:57We did it here and we can do it everywhere. We did the math. We did the work. We did
12:02the big things.
12:03And so to every other state across our country, to Washington, D.C., to anyone who's been told that
12:09responsibility and ambition, they can't share the same balance sheet, come to California. Look at the
12:15numbers. And look at kids. Look at the kids eating breakfast. Look at the work. We can have it all.
12:22We're proof.
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