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the newest candidate for governor in the
Democratic primary is a billionaire real
estate investor from Palm Beach who says
he'll spend whatever it takes to win
jeff green filed quietly two weeks ago
but is about to make a play for
attention with his first television ads
this week Green filed too late to
participate in the candidates debates
this week polling shows now two months
out from the August primary about half
of registered Florida Democrats are
still undecided Jeff Green sat down with
us here this week as he launched his
campaign last we spoke to you as a
candidate was 2010 you were running for
the US Senate you spent 24 million
dollars on that campaign of your
considerable resources for 31% of the
vote that's the seat that Marco Rubio
has now in the US Senate what happened
what went wrong and what why are you
doing this again for governor what are
the reasons well a lot has changed since
2010 the first one I was I was here in
2010 I was remember when I was driving
up and I was thinking when I was here I
had my little one year old baby with me
and now I have three boys my three boys
are four six and eight the birthdays
well on the false it'll soon be five
seven and nine and you know when you
have three little kids who changes your
life in basis so you don't have enough
to do is that what you're saying well no
you know what the focus of my is on my
kids now and my life has really changed
because it's different to have a little
baby with three boys very focused on on
their upbringing their education I mean
I don't know if you know much about my
background but you know my parents I was
born in Massachusetts you know basically
a middle class family I grew up very
comfortably my dad owned his own textile
machinery business and had a whole slew
of employees and you know he was very
comfortable I mom stayed at home and tar
wheel in your school once a week and in
the late 60s all the mills moved to
Florida and my dad lost everything
absolutely everything came down to West
Palm Beach and I have to tell you he
never really got back on his feet he had
a vending route I remember drive going
around with him and it was hard work we
had he went from owning a successful
business with a bunch of employees to
carrying heavy heavy cakes of soft
drinks we'd go out of the farms in the
motels putting in one at a time my mom
took a job as a waitress to the Breakers
she'd come back at midnight exhaust
having worked heavy tired banquets and I
saw it then how our family's
circumstances change you know from being
so comfortable to really struggling by
data unfortunately you know died of a
massive heart attack at 51 very suddenly
and you worked at the breakers too I
rented there and it's an interesting
story to tell because I think people
look at you as the rich guy now and and
I think it's important that you know
your story is kind of working hard and
living the American dream much like a
couple of other candidates that you are
running against but but what about you
as a candidate is important for people
to know why are you running for governor
let me just ask you about the a YouTube
video that you put together for your
2010 campaign which I found very helpful
to look at to hear you talk and you said
you wanted to run as an outsider this
was for Senate you wanted to run as an
outsider you were tired of stagnation
tired of Washington tired of politicians
who spent their careers doing nothing
but running and you know we're in a very
different world now but it it sounds
like fast forward to the time of
President Trump you are well situated
with that message well certainly I mean
lucky there's theorists there are some
great public servants who are poor in
politics it's not like everybody who's
elected official is a bad person I think
you look and you look at the state of
floor and you think that we read twenty
years of Republican governors 20 years
and look where we are in education this
isn't me making up the numbers US News
and World Report with 40 in the country
I mean if I'm lucky enough to become
governor it's not going to be hard to do
much better than 40 in the country I'm
not gonna make the Florida schools and
top ten because it's it's easy it's been
done before and that's the frustration
you look at education as an example I
mean you know you look at New Jersey New
Jersey was in the 30s it's now a top
five in the country Massachusetts number
one in the country we don't have to hire
a bunch of fancy consultants we know
what we have to do to make Florida
schools world-class for our kids so it's
interesting that you bring up education
because let's let's drill down into some
of the most important issues and we're
talking at a time when the four people
you're running against right now have
come off of two debates in a week not a
lot of daylight in between them they
agree on a lot the various democratic
principles they go from progress
to a bit more moderate and education and
one of the debate at both of the debates
of one on Monday night there was
agreement among all four to either offer
free or subsidized higher education to
reconfigure Florida's budget to pay
teachers set more salaries do you are
you number five in agreeing or is there
something different that you have to
offer well there you know we my wife and
I started a private school we don't take
a penny of government money it's not a
charter school we just decided we but we
found for our three kids that we
couldn't find a great public school or a
great private school that would get them
the kind of top-notch publication public
education that I had as a kid so you
created your own state we start right
now it's pre-k to seven this fall we'll
add eight next year we have its
need-blind I would say that of all sixty
percent of the kids get financial aid
and we've learned I've kind of kind of
an accidental educator so I've kind of
have learned a little something about
education so how would you take what
you've done you've created a school
that's an autonomous piece of work here
with your own money and your own
decisions how do you broaden that out
into your platform for public education
there it's much easier than people think
first of all we must have universal
pre-k education for two years for every
child in Florida that's not that's my
when I'm governor that'll be
non-negotiable because you know things
but that's non-negotiable pre-k
different thing every child will get
pre-k education paid for and not
babysitting daycare I'm talking about
where they're gonna learn and start
learning these classes because the
problem is kids come to kindergarten
without a vocabulary there is universal
pre-k no no you have to go to this
different programs you can go to
headstart and so forth but there is not
pre-k education paid for guaranteed
that's high quality by the state we're
gonna make sure it's available and that
will because because the problem is this
you know some kids the way my friend
Warren Buffett describes they just lose
the ovarian lottery you know that's not
their fault they're born in a
neighborhood you know which just doesn't
have the resources because it's low
property tax base and there's just the
schools are not not the best schools in
these kids there's not enough money
being spent on the kids and there's not
education and they get there they don't
have a vocabulary some of them live in
homes with a single parent who is
working all the time no one's reading to
them so
the first thing is get them there this
get them pre case over the time they get
to k2 guard they're ready to learn and
begin a long life of life love love of
life con granny but the second thing is
we have to understand the way of the
world's changing and like in our school
every child starting kindergarten takes
coding and computer science we our
children will be digitally fluent
digitally fluent means they will know
how to communicate with machines because
basically either you're going to learn
how to tell the machines what to do or
you'll be working for the machines so
that raise teacher salaries is this
absolutely where do you how do you pay
for that where do you find the money for
the pre-k and for the teacher salaries
etc well I mean we have to find the
money I mean that the budgets eighty
eight billion dollars you know so but
that's not a plan that's a hope that's
good that's a good point I mean look I
think that right now the budget is about
twenty five billion for education in
this state we're going to have to find
the money it's not it's any it has to be
the priority if it's not in the budget
my job as governor is to sit down with
people even if they're Republicans and
persuade them that we can't leave these
children without a decent education we
are ruining these children's laughter
you do it let me give you a quick
statistic as it's important one thing
I've done education that prior to third
grade children learned to read after
third grade as we all know kids learned
kids we'd to learn if you're not reading
in the third grade you're not learning
and let me tell you something guess what
percentage of Floridians are at third
grade reading level in the third grade
fifty four percent you know what's even
worse about that statistic it doesn't
change all the way through high school
is if you're not reading in the third
grade odds are you're not going to be
you're not going to learn to read in the
eighth grade so we have to get kids to
the third grade reading level the
correlation between third grade reading
level in prison or college is
frightening Lehigh so I'm not gonna take
no we'll fight we're gonna do we have to
do we're gonna get these kids to the
third grade reading level we're gonna
find the money in our budget
what would your what's your plan B to to
make affordable housing which is such a
huge issue especially in South Florida
more affordable some of the plans last
night at the or I should say Tuesday
night at the debate were making a
mandate for developers everything every
building they develop every property
they develop to set aside some more
multifamily or affordable housing you
are a developer would that fly with you
you know
I am a developer and you know it's great
to come up with ideas but you need ideas
that work and I have to tell you that
it's very hard to build affordable to
build apartments today and make sense
without that so I think if you put that
burden on developers just for now drama
the problem we have in Florida is wages
people are not or any wages rick Scott
talks about all these jobs you've
created they're low-paying jobs in all
the wrong industries why back to
education why the companies that have
good paying jobs and and a lot offered
great employment opportunities moved to
a state where's the first thing the
employees they're employees they're
asked how are the schools
we're number 40 in Florida oh well
that's good let's let's not move to
Florida then then they say well we need
to recruit great talented people get to
be in our business well gee how are the
kids in Florida board the schools are
number 40 in Florida let's go to
Massachusetts for 76 percent of our
private equity money is invested in
Massachusetts New York and California
very high tax states Rick Scott has
completely messed up this state in 20
years of Republican governors failing to
invest in education and in getting to
get provide investing and in the ending
in getting the human capital we need in
this state to attract businesses with
higher wages we also need to increase
the minimum wage of course we will can't
afford housing when they're making eight
hundred twenty eight thousand 25 cents
an hour so we have to increase minimum
wage we have to educate our population
to attract the kinds of businesses here
that will pay the wages and the salaries
that will give people enough to pay for
housing and we have to be innovative of
course we have to think of ways to if
there's enough money that a developer
can still make a profit and set aside
units for Mart low to moderate income
housing absolutely we should require
that he do that