Steve Hilton: Cali’s corruption dwarfs Minnesota’s fraud

I love this country. Becoming an American citizen was one of the proudest days of my life. 

Since moving here from the UK with my wife and two sons in 2012, I’ve taught at Stanford University, started a business and hosted a show on national TV.

Now I’m running for governor of California, the state I love.

I believe in the American Dream. In many ways, I’ve lived it. 

But over the last few years, Democrats have turned the American Dream into an Alien Welfare Scheme. 

As an immigrant, I’m disgusted by the behavior being revealed in Tim Walz’s Minnesota.

Arrogant criminals see living in America as a right, not a privilege — and taxpayers are footing the bill for people who refuse to accept the most fundamental principles of our culture, history and way of life.

But whatever is going on there, the corruption in Gavin Newsom’s California is a thousand times worse.

We have by far the largest number of illegal immigrants in America, and the nation’s highest poverty and unemployment rates. 

Our highest-in-the-nation taxes inflate a bloated, bureaucratic monstrosity of a state government that produces the worst results in the country.

Minnesota has been controlled by Democrats for the last three years. In California, it’s been 15.

One-party rule breeds complacency, entitlement and ultimately corruption.

Sure enough, Newsom’s most recent chief of staff was just indicted on corruption charges, and so has a top aide of Xavier Becerra, one of the Democrats running to replace him. 

California’s attorney general is mired in his own corruption scandal.

Bad as the Minnesota scandal is, it’s dwarfed by the California fraud we already know about.

Our Employment Development Department paid out at least $20 billion in fraudulent unemployment benefits during the pandemic — over a billion alone in the names of state and local prisoners, even inmates on death row.

The corrupt “homeless industrial complex” grabbed $24 billion in state spending, as crony nonprofits and developers pocketed taxpayer cash while homelessness increased.

One-party rule has turned California into a failed state. 

Working families who pay into the system cannot afford groceries, rent or basic necessities — yet California spends $13 billion a year on free health care for illegal immigrants.

I recently met a business owner who hired a worker newly arrived from Afghanistan.

After two days, the new employee asked to be paid in cash, saying he was afraid of losing his welfare benefits. 

How much was he getting in welfare? Seven thousand dollars a month — that’s $84,000 dollars a year.

Social services even arranged to deliver his groceries, telling him not to go to the store “because Americans are racist.”

State agencies funded by taxpayers are instructing newcomers to exploit programs that were created for vulnerable Americans — and teaching them to hate us while they’re at it. 

That’s not “compassion.” It’s organized abuse of public funds, a grotesque insult to every hard-working Californian.

We’re done with all this. 

But President Donald Trump and his team are fighting this sick culture of putting Americans last.

On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that half of Minnesota’s immigration visas are “fraudulent.”

Today I’m writing to her requesting an urgent investigation into the situation in California as well.

For years, whistleblowers in Minnesota’s state government tried to reveal the massive fraud they were seeing — and the efforts of Walz and the Democratic political establishment to cover it up.

We need that bravery in California, too.

This week I’m launching an anonymous tipline, Califraud.com, so honest civil servants can expose what’s really going on.

As governor, I’ll make sure we audit all social-services spending, so we can find the fraud and corruption — and put a stop to it.

These are just the first steps in cleaning up California after years of corrupt Democratic misrule.

But the deeper challenge is to reverse the appalling, anti-American attitude that has infected the modern left.

You only have to look at Great Britain to see where this could lead, with the “racism grift” that Brendan O’Neill has laid out so powerfully.

As I say on the campaign trail, I’m fighting to make sure this state I love does not turn into the country I left. 

You see, I haven’t just become a US citizen — I’ve renounced my UK citizenship, too. 

More than ever, we must stand strongly for that unique American ideal: Anyone can become an American, but everyone who does so must understand, cherish and fight for our values and culture. 

Work hard. Take responsibility. Speak our language. Love our country. 

The American Dream will stay alive — but only if we fight for it.

Steve Hilton is a Republican candidate for governor of California.