February 20, 2025 • 33 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 3 (02/20) - Susan Shelley comes on the show to talk about CA high-speed rail as US Transportation Sec. Sean Duffy was in LA talking about it today. More on the high-speed rail boondoggle and DOGE finding wasteful spending. Rick Caruso's group Steadfast LA is ready to provide 80-100 modular homes to fire victims.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I am six forty.
Speaker 3 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobelt podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
We are on every day from one until four o'clock,
and then after four o'clock John Cobelt's show on demand
on the iHeart app, and that's the podcast version, and
you can listen to whatever you missed. It's posted a
little bit after four o'clock. We are going to talk
further now about Sean Duffy, the Transportation secretary from the
(00:25):
Trump administration, coming to Los Angeles, went to Union station,
had a press conference today and you heard the clip
that we played. He says, hey, it's been seventeen years
and sixteen billion dollars and there's no high speed rail track,
there's no trains, and there's four billion dollars that the
Biden administration has put a side to further well, four
(00:48):
billion dollars to pour down the rat hole. And he's
doing a what do they call it a compliance compliance review?
A compliance review, fancy word for an investigation. The Central
Railroad Administration is the specific bureaucracy that has jurisdiction over
this project. Let's we are so far away from it.
(01:11):
Running from San Francisco, to LA. Let's get Susan Shelley
on from the Howard Drivers Taxpayers Association to talk about this.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
John, great to be with you, Susan.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I got a question, Mike sat adeleft field. Do you
think they ever intended to really build a high speed
rail or was this just a massive money laundering scheme
away for all the political parasites to get rich.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
You're exactly right. What you were saying before is exactly right.
This was a money grabbing scheme from the beginning. You know,
the California High Speed Rail Authority was actually formed in
nineteen ninety six, and they had twelve years before that
ten billion dollar bond measure went on the ballot, and
they were supposed to produce a business plan before that election,
(01:56):
and they delivered it after the election. And when they
delivered it, the Legislative Analysts Office looked at it and said, well,
you've got no funding source, You've got no basis for
these writership projections, which are wildly optimistic. You've got nothing here.
But it was too late. The voters had already fallen
for it.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
That's the whole thing. The voters felt for it. Because
I know people friends of mine who are normally clear headed,
and they said, well, it sounded really exciting, kind of
cool to you know, get to San Francisco in two
and a half hours at two hundred miles an hour.
They just believed it because you know, people love science
fiction stuff and they thought this was one of those
science fiction dreams that was going to come true.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Well, we've seen all their beautiful animation and their watercolor
paintings of how beautiful it's going to be for what
we're paying. Those things should be in the Louver Museum.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
So they knew what they were doing right from the beginning,
and they knew this was going to be the outcome
that but you know, at nineteen ninety six, right, So
here we are in twenty twenty five, almost thirty years later,
and everybody's run off with the sixteen billion dollars and
they're just trying to hang on to see if they
can get another year or two out of it.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Exactly. Do you remember when Gavin Newsom was first elected,
he gave his State of the State address in twenty
nineteen and he said, look, we all know this isn't
realistic And at the headlines went out all over the
place saying Gavin Newsom is going to cancel the bullet train.
He walked it back immediately. But the Trump administration pounced
on that statement and they said, well, this is not
(03:25):
the deal to which we agreed. We gave you two
and a half billion dollars and another million, another billion dollars,
another nine hundred and some million for a train from
San Francisco to Los Angeles, and now you're going from
Mercead to Bakersfield. We're clawing it back. And then the
whole legal fight started. And then Biden took office and
he said, oh, yeah, it's fine, we'll do this, and
we'll do another four billion. It's fine. And now what
(03:47):
you have is the Trump administration is back. They're picking
up where they left off. They're going to do a
compliance review to see if this is the deal that
was promised to the federal taxpayers.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
It's so comical that they now pushing a Bakersfield to
Merced route, as if that's a thing, as if that's
something that anybody wants and that it's going to be
used by anyone.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Oh, it's so ridiculous. If you ask them, how is
this a train from San Francisco to Los Angeles? This
is what they tell you. This is actually what they
tell you. It's conventional rail from the Bay Area to Merced.
It's high speed rail eventually from Merced to Bakersfield, and
then you get on the high speed rail bus and
you take a bus from Bakersfield into Los Angeles and
(04:31):
then what time?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I never heard this one. Wait a second.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
So when you get when you get off the train
in Bakersfield, you're supposed to take a bus.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
A bus, a bus.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
But they're calling it the high speed rail bus.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Well, it's going to be operated by the High speed
Rail Authority. They can call it George Washington bo I here,
it's a bus from Bakersfield to La Yes.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
To take Do you write comedy on the side. This
can't be real.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
This is the real story. It's a high speed Rail
authority the business plan writing this. They think that possibly
their ridership estimates are a little bit optimistic, given that
it's seven hours and you have to take a bus.
So yeah, they think.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
People are going to take a train from San frys
for San Francisco to said and then a second train
to Baker's shows and then get on a bus the
rest of the way to La What are they charging
for this.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Is there a price on this ship?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I don't think they've sticked out a price yet, but
that will be entertaining. You know, according to the original measure,
they're not allowed to run this with a public subsidy.
It have to pay for itself.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
And there's no way or for seventy nine dollars, you
could take a one hour flight and land a lax you.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Know, for what we're paying, we could have bought Southwest
Airlines and flown everybody around the staff free.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Oh man, we just got all hosed, didn't we We
just got flat out ripped off by a bunch of thieves.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Absolutely. But now they're going to look at this, and
the compliance review is going to include site inspections. They're
going to go out there and take pictures and hard
hats of nothing being constructive but empty land. And they're
going to look into the project activities. They're going to
look into the financial records, and they said in this
letter today from the Federal Railroad Administration to the High
(06:17):
Speed Rail Authority, they said from now on, effective today,
you proceed on this at your own risk. So the
funding is going to dry up, no question.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Yeah, I mean, they never got a soul on planet
Earth to invest in this thing. No companies, no rich
guys from foreign companies or from America. Nobody ever put
a dollar into this thing.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
I asked once about that. They sent out a press
relief saying that they had private investors, and I said,
can I can I see who those private investors are?
Do you have any rifts? They sent me a bunch
of requests for contracts people wanted us to pay them.
So that's not exactly what they promised.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
That's not an investor, no contract where they're asking to
be paid. Oh my god. And I'm not crazy, right
who I am? But a couple of years ago there
was an audit done and the auditor said, well, there's
no paperwork on where this money went, like payments were made,
(07:18):
but they don't know to who.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Well, that's entirely possible of the Inspector General. Just more
recent reports that they have. There's no way they're going
to meet the deadline to operate this segment, which was
supposed to be opened by twenty twenty one, and then
they moved the deadline to twenty thirty and they said, well,
we're going to give it a little bit of flexibility
twenty thirty three, and now the Inspector General says they're
(07:41):
not even going to make it by twenty thirty three.
This is Merced to Bakersfield, never mind San Francisco to
Los Angeles, I mean even walking lest time.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
The high speed rail bus. I'll never forget that phrase.
All right, Susan, thanks for coming on here.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Susan Shelley from that how we're Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah you believe that?
Speaker 5 (08:03):
So wait, I'm gonna go on a bus?
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Yes, after two trains going from San Francisco to Mareset
to Bakersfield, then you get off the second train and
you go on a bus.
Speaker 5 (08:13):
So why would I do that? I would just drive myself.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Why would I do that? Does the bus go one
hundred plus miles an hour? Is it high speed? I
want to know.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Well, they're calling it the high speed rail bus, so
maybe it goes two hundred miles an hour. I I
I just I do believe it.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I'm just flabbergasted by all this.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Can you imagine if they did a doge on Sacramento
in Los Angeles what they'd find?
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Holy moly? All right, Mare coming up.
Speaker 6 (08:43):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
So uh oh.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
During the commercial break, let's talk with Susan Shelley from
Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, and we were talking about Sean Duffy,
the Transportation Secretary for Trump, coming into town and saying
that they're going to do a federal compliance review to
see what happened to the first sixteen billion dollars for
the non high speed rail. And I just lost it
(09:14):
when I heard that the current plan, you know, the
San Francisco to La.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Dream that they had, is going to be.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
You take one low speed train from San Francisco to Merced,
then a second train from Merced to Bakersfield, and once
you get to Bakersfield, you get off the train and
you get on a bus. They're going to have a
high speed rail bus take you to Los Angeles. No,
(09:43):
I'm not making that up. So I just quickly just googled.
Let's go back to November fifteenth of twenty eighteen, six
and a half years ago.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
The high speed rail has been audit.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Did by the California Auditor Elaine Howley, and how he
found the bullet train has been plagued by poor management
and billions of dollars have been wasted. This is six
and a half years ago, flawed decision making, poor contract management.
(10:20):
It's a scathing report that the authority awarded. They found
that the authority awarded contracts before planning had been completed
in order to be the federal deadline. The bad decision
has cost the state billions of dollars. Jim Patterson, the
Assemblyment at the time, said it's a damning report and
(10:41):
we're going to be left with precious little long after
the jobs. It's time to stop lying about what's there,
pretending there's a Disneyland ride in our future that's going
to be the next Jetsons, and start dealing with truth
and reality, he called it. And this is right before
he said news them owt to take control, except Newsom didn't,
(11:03):
and he's let the corruption go on for six and
a half more years. Boy, he'd make a good president. Yeah,
Gavin Newsom was president, you wouldn't have Sean Duffy coming
in here and doing a compliance what's it called clients review? Yeah,
you wouldn't have it. They would just keep spending the
billions of dollars. Here is a statement from California High
(11:29):
Speed Rail. We welcomed this investigation and look forward to
working with federal partners. California high Speed Rail has been
audited over one hundred times.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
We has not. But what a They just say anything
and they're hoping.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
The media reports that some people go around saying, you
know what, it's been ordered it a hundred times. Every dollar
is accounted for and progress is real. Fifty structure is built.
Structures you can't. You can't ride a structure in two
and a half hours from San Francisco to La What
(12:09):
is that?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Tool sheds, equipment sheds.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Fourteen thousand jobs created, Yeah, fake make work jobs that
accomplish nothing. Communists were good at that too, And one
hundred and seventy one miles under construction except nobody can
find the rail. One hundred and seventy one miles of
what you have? One hundred and seventy one miles of dirt.
(12:36):
And that's their official statement. And then the last line
of this full speed ahead that's theation. Boy, you see,
they mock everybody, They mock us, they mock you. You the
suckers gave them sixteen billion dollars and seventeen years later,
they're cracking jokes.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
They're cracking jokes on.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Twitter hashtag CAAHSR California high Speed Rail ah ah a,
we have sixteen billion dollars and that used to be
your money. But they knew this from day one. Knew
some knew this. Jerry Brown knew it. Schwartz Dan they
knew it from day one. Was never ever gonna get built,
(13:17):
but they knew they could emotionally manipulate people and get them.
It's what Jim Patterson said, Oh cool, it's like a
Disneyland ride. We're all gonna go whoo, whooo. We're gonna
go five hundred miles and two and a half hours. Whoo,
just like the cartoons I used to see as a kid. God,
(13:38):
what a dumb species we are. We're so dumb and
we waste time saying, oh, these guys, these guys are
really bad at their job. You know, they're really no good. No,
they're not.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
They're good at their job.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
You just assumed that their job was building a high
speed rail system.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
It wasn't.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Their job was milking us for billions of day and
then running off with it. They're extremely good at their job.
You are not very good at detecting thieves criminals. You
vote for criminals over and over again. They appoint other
criminals to run their agencies, and they run all kinds
(14:18):
of emotionally manipulative campaigns and commercials, and you go, oh wow,
that'd be cool. Have a high speed railly. We're never
going to do that. How the hell were they going
to get through the mountains?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Huh?
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Are we going to get some money back?
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Are we?
Speaker 5 (14:35):
Hey, if it's not going to.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Happen, another comedian here, Yeah, we're going to get money back.
We're going to get a full refund on the whole thing. Well,
that's one wrinkle that Trump has. He's looking at this
idea that out of all the money that Musks' is
Doze agency saves, they put eighty percent into paying down
(15:01):
the debt, and then twenty percent goes back to the
tax payers. Okay, we all get out and I'll take
that deal. That's a great deal me too. Now we
could all get we all get refunds because they have
a lot of money now that they have that they
have clawed back.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
In fact, I'm good at Wall Street Journal. I'll do
this next.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Wall Street Journal has a great article on all the
improper payments that these agencies have made, and it's hundreds
of billions of dollars of improper payments. And get this,
they know that they've made improper payments. In fact, they
announced it publicly. Yes, we've had forty two billion dollars
(15:41):
in improper payments this year.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
They announced it. They just don't do anything about it.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
They don't stop the payments, they don't get the money back,
and then next year there are hundreds of billions of
dollars of more improper payments. It's an unbelievable story. The
headline is DOSE is searching for wasteful spending. It isn't
hard to find. Identifying the waste isn't the hard part.
It's actually doing something about it.
Speaker 7 (16:05):
I have an idea, what, well, why don't we not
pay taxes for a couple of years.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
It's a good one. Yeah, you know, they're firing six
thousand I R R S agents.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
That's right. So this is the year.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
This is the year you go first. Now I'm going
to follow you.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Yeah, and I'm gonna announce it on the air that
I'm not paying my taxes.
Speaker 5 (16:30):
But there's not gonna be anybody to audit you.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
I am not teaming up with you as a criminal.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
It was just a suggestions a way of us.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I'm getting some money. You've guaranteed you're both gonna get audited.
Speaker 5 (16:41):
Now, I didn't say we were going to do it.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
I'm gonna get you a job with high speed rail.
More coming up.
Speaker 6 (16:50):
You're listening to John Cobel's on demand from KFI AM
sixty one.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
More note on the high speed Rail of fiasco, because
as Sean Duffy, the Transportation Secretary for Trump, was in
town today saying they're going to do a compliance review,
which means they're going to be shutting the federal money spigott.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Off for this garbage.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
And I was just looking through past audits here I
mentioned this before. Here, here's another audit, and this one
was done in twenty ten. This was just this was
less than two years, less than two years after the
after that referendum past at the ballot authorizing the borrowing
(17:37):
of almost ten billion dollars to finance high speed rail.
The auditor found that the High Speed Rail Authority does
not ensure that work is actually performed by contractors before
paying invoices.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
This was fifteen years ago.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
They had already been flagged by an auditor for paying
contractor for paying contractors before the work was done, and
they paid four million dollars to regional contractors without documentation
saying the work was completed. The auditor also determined that
the High Speed Rail Authority had no system for tracking
(18:18):
administration costs and pre construction costs as required by state law,
and consequently risks prematurely exhausting funds limited for those purposes.
So within two years there were auditors saying, hey, there's
no records here, and they kept finding that with every audit.
Hey there's no records because people were stealing it for
(18:43):
seventeen years. All right, here's more, And this is from
Doje and Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Now you tell
me what you think is cool here. If you have
all your panties bunched up in a snit over Trump
and Musk, you tell me what I'm about to relay
(19:06):
to you. Is any of this cool with you? Shouldn't
all this be stopped and reversed?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Washington? No.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
The Wall Street Journal has said that identifying wasted, wasteful
outlays is it the hardest part, it's actually doing something
about it. The federal government, by their own admission, misspends
at least one hundred billion dollars each year, one hundred
(19:35):
billion dollars each year. It's called improper payments, and they
document their improper payments. Here are the categories fraud, but
also underpayments, duplicate payments, payments to ineligible recipients or for
ineligible goods or services. Also amounts that didn't follow regulations,
(20:00):
such as a contract missing a required signature.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Oh, that makes it a fake contract.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
The most recent fiscal year, September twenty twenty four, the
agencies that reported improper payments identified one hundred and forty
nine billion dollars one hundred forty nine billion dollars. They
passed a law in two thousand and two and revised
it in twenty ten, twenty thirteen, and twenty twenty. More
(20:30):
than ninety percent of the improper payments were over payments.
So they've passed the law four times to report improper
payments and they report them at ninety percent or overpayments,
but they do don't do anything about them. And it's
the Social Security Agency, it's the EPA, the National Science Foundation.
Speaker 5 (20:51):
How come I'm never overpaid?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
I have never gotten an overpayment. I used to play
Monopoly as a kid, and this phrase they're always stuck
in my head. Bank error in your favor and you
get two hundred dollars. Remember that I never got a
bank er in my favor. I never got a government
error in my favor. And I'm reading this and I'm
envious all these billions and billions of dollars.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Of overpayments and none of them came to me. Are
you all right?
Speaker 3 (21:22):
So here's here's the category, and again this is the
government admitting it. Medicare thirty one point seven billion dollars
in improper payments, Medicaid thirty one billion, Medicare advantage nineteen billion,
Medicare prescription drug benefits three and a half billion, the
(21:44):
insurance the Children's in the Children's Health Insurance program one billion.
So just because you're gonna hear that Trump is gonna
want to cut Medicare and Medicaid and everybody's got.
Speaker 5 (21:57):
To do that, that's all people are done.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
No, the old people are getting sixty two billion dollars
in overpayments. The Treasury Department gives out sixteen billion dollars
in improper payments for It's called the earned income tax credit. Oh,
those are the payments that go to people who don't
pay taxes. You know, if you don't pay taxes, the
(22:26):
government sends you other people's tax money. It's true, and
they came up with this fancy they called earned income
tax credit.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Wait, yeah, what Yeah, no, it's a real thing.
Speaker 7 (22:41):
So if I don't want to pay my taxes, I
didn't say I'm.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Not going to, you're gonna get You're really billiing a case.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
Well, the thing is I pay every year, okay, but
if I didn't.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
If if you didn't earn enough money to pay taxes,
then they give you money. Okay, it's a welfare program.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
Oh oh, well you didn't say that.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
That's the whole point.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
They came up with a fancy name so most people
wouldn't realize it's a welfare program. Earned income tax credits
sounds like, oh, well they earned it.
Speaker 5 (23:15):
Exactly right.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
It must be what I thought.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
I thought I was getting screwed something.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Now the whole country has been fooled by this additional
child tax credits three billion in over payments. American Opportunity
Tax Credit one and a half billion. I don't get
any of these either. In the Agriculture Department, there's ten
and a half billion dollars in overpayments to the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program that is SNAP. You may have heard
(23:38):
of that acronym. The National School Lunch Program one and
a half billion dollars in overpayments. What is that extra carrots? I?
What extra peanut butter and jelly? The Social Security Administration
six billion, six and a half billion dollars in SSI payments,
(24:01):
four billion for Old Age Survivors and Disability Insurance, another
five billion for the Federal State Ninsurance Unemployment Insurance Division.
In the Labor Department, the Federal Highway Administration overpaid by
a billion dollars. The Small Business Administration has a paycheck
(24:22):
protection program that was almost two billion in overpayments. Improper payments,
the loan guarantee approvals that's over a billion. In fact,
some of these departments, twenty five percent of the money
they pay out is for improper payments, twenty five percent
(24:43):
of the entire department, and the most of that is overpayments.
Top government agencies by overpayments were covered Health and Human
Services almost thirteen billion, Social Security, five billion, Defense a
half and others. There's all these these graphs, and these
(25:05):
are all the government numbers.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
So it's true.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
But none of the other presidents ever did anything about this.
Republican and Democrat and Trump the first time around, nobody
ever did anything. Yeah, at a Republican Congress, Democrat congress
split Congress didn't matter. Nobody ever cared because you keep
sending them money, no questions asked. And then when they
(25:28):
say we've got a cut, they send out protest groups, going,
no cut.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Our medicaid, our grandmothers and children are going.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
To die again. Emotional manipulation. They don't tell you that
they give out one hundred and fifty billion dollars in
overpayments every year and the money's not never recovered.
Speaker 7 (25:47):
It's like that gas tax that was on the ballot
how many years ago, and yeah, and the commercials were
we're not going to have there won't be any police
officers and your roads aren't going to be safe and
this and that and yeah, blah.
Speaker 5 (25:59):
Blah blah blah bla law and people fall for it,
and they do.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
We are, especially in this state, we are a state
full of suckers. You'll believe any crap that the government
tells you, and it's no wonder.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Everything is a disaster because they're smarter than you are.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
The people in Sacramento in LA are corrupt, they're criminals,
and they're much smarter than you are because they craft
these clever emotional pitches and you always go.
Speaker 6 (26:32):
You're listening to John Cobbels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
A lot of time this week on the idiot Karen Bass,
who admitted to Alex Michaelson on Fox eleven that she
didn't know that fire weather was coming.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
She didn't know.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
In an alternate universe, Rick, if people are rational and
voted on competence and intelligence, Rick Caruso would be mare.
Rick Caruso has started a nonprofit organization, Steadfast LA, to
try to fast track rebuilding for people. And here's what
his organization has accomplished. And it was announced yesterday. Here's
(27:18):
a report from ABC seven Josh Haskell.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
So many here in Altadena who want to rebuild, they
just have no idea how they can afford it. Well,
Steadfast LA is targeting that group. Eighty to one hundred
modular homes are headed to communities like Altadena and also
the Palisades impacted by our fires, so those who lost their.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Homes can stay in the communities that.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
They love now. The Northern California based company Samara and Airbnb,
with help from the Caruso Family Foundation, will construct and
install factory built homes that only take five to six
months to make and can be installed.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
In as little as few as a few weeks.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
Steadfast LA, made up of private sector leaders founded by
Rick Caruso, says they believe prefab construction is key to
rebuilding as LA, as it keeps costs down and limits delays.
We spoke with Ronald Dunlap, who's lived in Altadena since
nineteen seventy five. He lost his home and said insurance
(28:20):
will only cover half of the cost to rebuild, so
he will be one of the first to receive a
new modular home.
Speaker 8 (28:27):
I just want to be home, but you know, if
we're not home, then we have to try to find
someplace else, and that is a daunting task because altinting
was you don't really realize how perfect your life is
until it's gone. It looks like a place that we
could actually feel like being home again. That it's substantial
enough that.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
We can put down roots again.
Speaker 9 (28:51):
These homes are intended for people who probably have lived
in the community a long time. We're probably house for
its cash poor under insurance. Maybe they are also older,
they don't have the time or the inclination to rebuild
a house, but want to get back to their community,
certainly of low and moderate income. They're going to qualify
in Altadena, They're going to qualify in the Palisades, They'll
(29:12):
qualify in Malibu, wherever that need exists. And Josh I
just want to say, this is just the start. So
we've got a generous donation. We're going to raise thirty
million dollars around it. That's going to probably provide about
eighty to one hundred homes, and then I want to
grow it from there with other home providers and other
home builders, and we're going to get other donations. I'd
(29:35):
love to get this up to one thousand now.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
Although this is funded by steadfast LA, steadfast LA needs
the city in county to waive fees and also help
with the permitting process. I'm told once that happens in
locks are cleared, those modular homes will arrive there.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
You go eighty two one hundred modular homes Altadena Palisade.
You heard Caruso, strong, decisive, intelligent, detailed plan. Compare that
to Bass yesterday bumbling and fumbling trying to explain why
she didn't know the fires were coming, and claiming that
(30:12):
the fire chief didn't think there was much danger because
we always have Santa Ana wins.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
But the intelligence of voters in Los Angeles. They went
with someone who can't read a National Weather Service warning
and then flies off to Africa, as opposed to Rick Caruso,
who's not taking any money for this.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
He's not like sober Off.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
This is He's got this organization and they're gonna put
in these hundred modular homes just as soon as the
cities get their act together and clean the lots and
streamline the permitting process.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Although there were warnings that I frankly wasn't aware of.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Yeah, good joy.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
In an alternate universe, the Palisades is still with us.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
We've got Conway being song with you. Who's putting in
the modular homes? Versa? Oh is that right? Yeah? All right?
Look good for him. You know, he's got plenty of money.
I liked it.
Speaker 10 (31:14):
He came out with us, and he's doing this charity
on you know, and not putting together LA. I said, hey,
how do people donate and he said, no, we're not
taking donations. We got the money. That's when you know
they're wealthy people. Yeah, they're not taking any donations. Yeah,
well they got it's all the other wealthy people.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
And yeah that's where it should be. Yeah, you know,
and they're.
Speaker 10 (31:32):
Doing it right. Don't give them money to the city.
The city will just blow it. Yeah, they like they've
done time and time again. Yeah, for fifty years. We
have the original pantry downtown LA. They're threatening to close.
We'll tell you about that. Kentucky Fried Chicken is leaving Kentucky. Yeah,
really kind of crazy, huh. And then Forever twenty one
(31:53):
is going out of business. I don't know where you're
going to have shop for your clothes.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Now, I look cute in that stuff. You know they
have a where you got your shirt?
Speaker 10 (32:00):
That's where I got this. Yeah, you know, Forever twenty
one has a plus size store as well. I don't
know if they're going out of business or not. It's
called Forever to twenty.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
One, is that right? That's right? All right? And then
anything else. I don't think so.
Speaker 10 (32:19):
No, Yeah, hockey today Canada, USA. Big game, big game,
big game, Oh, big, big game. And then Gavin Newsom,
I's proposing one hundred and twenty five million dollars for
mortgage relief for the wildlife victims. Gotta be some kind
of attachment to that. There's gotta be some kind of downside.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
I would that. Yeah.
Speaker 10 (32:36):
And then the passengers at the and the Toronto plane crash,
you're all getting some money, big check. Oh yeah, yeah,
thirty thousand dollars each, and they can still sue the airline.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
This is just a big sorry, right.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
I see you get flipped upside down for thirty thousand. Right,
you have a family of four, one hundred and twenty grand.
Take that on a heartbeat. Got thirty grand the upside down.
I'll get thirty grand.
Speaker 10 (32:59):
In every anybody listening right now and be like, oh,
as long as I survive, I'd take it in a heartbeat.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Yeah, unless you're Caruso, Well yeah, you don't need to
go through that.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Conway's next with Krusher has the news live in the
CAFI twenty for our newsroom. Hey, you've been listening to
the John Covelt Show podcast. You can always hear the
show live on KFI Am six forty from one to
four pm every Monday through Friday, and of course anytime
on demand on the iHeartRadio app
Can't.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I am six forty.
Speaker 3 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobelt podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
We are on every day from one until four o'clock,
and then after four o'clock John Cobelt's show on demand
on the iHeart app, and that's the podcast version, and
you can listen to whatever you missed. It's posted a
little bit after four o'clock. We are going to talk
further now about Sean Duffy, the Transportation secretary from the
(00:25):
Trump administration, coming to Los Angeles, went to Union station,
had a press conference today and you heard the clip
that we played. He says, hey, it's been seventeen years
and sixteen billion dollars and there's no high speed rail track,
there's no trains, and there's four billion dollars that the
Biden administration has put a side to further well, four
(00:48):
billion dollars to pour down the rat hole. And he's
doing a what do they call it a compliance compliance review?
A compliance review, fancy word for an investigation. The Central
Railroad Administration is the specific bureaucracy that has jurisdiction over
this project. Let's we are so far away from it.
(01:11):
Running from San Francisco, to LA. Let's get Susan Shelley
on from the Howard Drivers Taxpayers Association to talk about this.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
John, great to be with you, Susan.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I got a question, Mike sat adeleft field. Do you
think they ever intended to really build a high speed
rail or was this just a massive money laundering scheme
away for all the political parasites to get rich.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
You're exactly right. What you were saying before is exactly right.
This was a money grabbing scheme from the beginning. You know,
the California High Speed Rail Authority was actually formed in
nineteen ninety six, and they had twelve years before that
ten billion dollar bond measure went on the ballot, and
they were supposed to produce a business plan before that election,
(01:56):
and they delivered it after the election. And when they
delivered it, the Legislative Analysts Office looked at it and said, well,
you've got no funding source, You've got no basis for
these writership projections, which are wildly optimistic. You've got nothing here.
But it was too late. The voters had already fallen
for it.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
That's the whole thing. The voters felt for it. Because
I know people friends of mine who are normally clear headed,
and they said, well, it sounded really exciting, kind of
cool to you know, get to San Francisco in two
and a half hours at two hundred miles an hour.
They just believed it because you know, people love science
fiction stuff and they thought this was one of those
science fiction dreams that was going to come true.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Well, we've seen all their beautiful animation and their watercolor
paintings of how beautiful it's going to be for what
we're paying. Those things should be in the Louver Museum.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
So they knew what they were doing right from the beginning,
and they knew this was going to be the outcome
that but you know, at nineteen ninety six, right, So
here we are in twenty twenty five, almost thirty years later,
and everybody's run off with the sixteen billion dollars and
they're just trying to hang on to see if they
can get another year or two out of it.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Exactly. Do you remember when Gavin Newsom was first elected,
he gave his State of the State address in twenty
nineteen and he said, look, we all know this isn't
realistic And at the headlines went out all over the
place saying Gavin Newsom is going to cancel the bullet train.
He walked it back immediately. But the Trump administration pounced
on that statement and they said, well, this is not
(03:25):
the deal to which we agreed. We gave you two
and a half billion dollars and another million, another billion dollars,
another nine hundred and some million for a train from
San Francisco to Los Angeles, and now you're going from
Mercead to Bakersfield. We're clawing it back. And then the
whole legal fight started. And then Biden took office and
he said, oh, yeah, it's fine, we'll do this, and
we'll do another four billion. It's fine. And now what
(03:47):
you have is the Trump administration is back. They're picking
up where they left off. They're going to do a
compliance review to see if this is the deal that
was promised to the federal taxpayers.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
It's so comical that they now pushing a Bakersfield to
Merced route, as if that's a thing, as if that's
something that anybody wants and that it's going to be
used by anyone.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Oh, it's so ridiculous. If you ask them, how is
this a train from San Francisco to Los Angeles? This
is what they tell you. This is actually what they
tell you. It's conventional rail from the Bay Area to Merced.
It's high speed rail eventually from Merced to Bakersfield, and
then you get on the high speed rail bus and
you take a bus from Bakersfield into Los Angeles and
(04:31):
then what time?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I never heard this one. Wait a second.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
So when you get when you get off the train
in Bakersfield, you're supposed to take a bus.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
A bus, a bus.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
But they're calling it the high speed rail bus.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Well, it's going to be operated by the High speed
Rail Authority. They can call it George Washington bo I here,
it's a bus from Bakersfield to La Yes.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
To take Do you write comedy on the side. This
can't be real.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
This is the real story. It's a high speed Rail
authority the business plan writing this. They think that possibly
their ridership estimates are a little bit optimistic, given that
it's seven hours and you have to take a bus.
So yeah, they think.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
People are going to take a train from San frys
for San Francisco to said and then a second train
to Baker's shows and then get on a bus the
rest of the way to La What are they charging
for this.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Is there a price on this ship?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I don't think they've sticked out a price yet, but
that will be entertaining. You know, according to the original measure,
they're not allowed to run this with a public subsidy.
It have to pay for itself.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
And there's no way or for seventy nine dollars, you
could take a one hour flight and land a lax you.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Know, for what we're paying, we could have bought Southwest
Airlines and flown everybody around the staff free.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Oh man, we just got all hosed, didn't we We
just got flat out ripped off by a bunch of thieves.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Absolutely. But now they're going to look at this, and
the compliance review is going to include site inspections. They're
going to go out there and take pictures and hard
hats of nothing being constructive but empty land. And they're
going to look into the project activities. They're going to
look into the financial records, and they said in this
letter today from the Federal Railroad Administration to the High
(06:17):
Speed Rail Authority, they said from now on, effective today,
you proceed on this at your own risk. So the
funding is going to dry up, no question.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Yeah, I mean, they never got a soul on planet
Earth to invest in this thing. No companies, no rich
guys from foreign companies or from America. Nobody ever put
a dollar into this thing.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
I asked once about that. They sent out a press
relief saying that they had private investors, and I said,
can I can I see who those private investors are?
Do you have any rifts? They sent me a bunch
of requests for contracts people wanted us to pay them.
So that's not exactly what they promised.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
That's not an investor, no contract where they're asking to
be paid. Oh my god. And I'm not crazy, right
who I am? But a couple of years ago there
was an audit done and the auditor said, well, there's
no paperwork on where this money went, like payments were made,
(07:18):
but they don't know to who.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Well, that's entirely possible of the Inspector General. Just more
recent reports that they have. There's no way they're going
to meet the deadline to operate this segment, which was
supposed to be opened by twenty twenty one, and then
they moved the deadline to twenty thirty and they said, well,
we're going to give it a little bit of flexibility
twenty thirty three, and now the Inspector General says they're
(07:41):
not even going to make it by twenty thirty three.
This is Merced to Bakersfield, never mind San Francisco to
Los Angeles, I mean even walking lest time.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
The high speed rail bus. I'll never forget that phrase.
All right, Susan, thanks for coming on here.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Susan Shelley from that how we're Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah you believe that?
Speaker 5 (08:03):
So wait, I'm gonna go on a bus?
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Yes, after two trains going from San Francisco to Mareset
to Bakersfield, then you get off the second train and
you go on a bus.
Speaker 5 (08:13):
So why would I do that? I would just drive myself.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Why would I do that? Does the bus go one
hundred plus miles an hour? Is it high speed? I
want to know.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Well, they're calling it the high speed rail bus, so
maybe it goes two hundred miles an hour. I I
I just I do believe it.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I'm just flabbergasted by all this.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Can you imagine if they did a doge on Sacramento
in Los Angeles what they'd find?
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Holy moly? All right, Mare coming up.
Speaker 6 (08:43):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
So uh oh.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
During the commercial break, let's talk with Susan Shelley from
Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, and we were talking about Sean Duffy,
the Transportation Secretary for Trump, coming into town and saying
that they're going to do a federal compliance review to
see what happened to the first sixteen billion dollars for
the non high speed rail. And I just lost it
(09:14):
when I heard that the current plan, you know, the
San Francisco to La.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Dream that they had, is going to be.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
You take one low speed train from San Francisco to Merced,
then a second train from Merced to Bakersfield, and once
you get to Bakersfield, you get off the train and
you get on a bus. They're going to have a
high speed rail bus take you to Los Angeles. No,
(09:43):
I'm not making that up. So I just quickly just googled.
Let's go back to November fifteenth of twenty eighteen, six
and a half years ago.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
The high speed rail has been audit.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Did by the California Auditor Elaine Howley, and how he
found the bullet train has been plagued by poor management
and billions of dollars have been wasted. This is six
and a half years ago, flawed decision making, poor contract management.
(10:20):
It's a scathing report that the authority awarded. They found
that the authority awarded contracts before planning had been completed
in order to be the federal deadline. The bad decision
has cost the state billions of dollars. Jim Patterson, the
Assemblyment at the time, said it's a damning report and
(10:41):
we're going to be left with precious little long after
the jobs. It's time to stop lying about what's there,
pretending there's a Disneyland ride in our future that's going
to be the next Jetsons, and start dealing with truth
and reality, he called it. And this is right before
he said news them owt to take control, except Newsom didn't,
(11:03):
and he's let the corruption go on for six and
a half more years. Boy, he'd make a good president. Yeah,
Gavin Newsom was president, you wouldn't have Sean Duffy coming
in here and doing a compliance what's it called clients review? Yeah,
you wouldn't have it. They would just keep spending the
billions of dollars. Here is a statement from California High
(11:29):
Speed Rail. We welcomed this investigation and look forward to
working with federal partners. California high Speed Rail has been
audited over one hundred times.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
We has not. But what a They just say anything
and they're hoping.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
The media reports that some people go around saying, you
know what, it's been ordered it a hundred times. Every dollar
is accounted for and progress is real. Fifty structure is built.
Structures you can't. You can't ride a structure in two
and a half hours from San Francisco to La What
(12:09):
is that?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Tool sheds, equipment sheds.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Fourteen thousand jobs created, Yeah, fake make work jobs that
accomplish nothing. Communists were good at that too, And one
hundred and seventy one miles under construction except nobody can
find the rail. One hundred and seventy one miles of
what you have? One hundred and seventy one miles of dirt.
(12:36):
And that's their official statement. And then the last line
of this full speed ahead that's theation. Boy, you see,
they mock everybody, They mock us, they mock you. You the
suckers gave them sixteen billion dollars and seventeen years later,
they're cracking jokes.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
They're cracking jokes on.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Twitter hashtag CAAHSR California high Speed Rail ah ah a,
we have sixteen billion dollars and that used to be
your money. But they knew this from day one. Knew
some knew this. Jerry Brown knew it. Schwartz Dan they
knew it from day one. Was never ever gonna get built,
(13:17):
but they knew they could emotionally manipulate people and get them.
It's what Jim Patterson said, Oh cool, it's like a
Disneyland ride. We're all gonna go whoo, whooo. We're gonna
go five hundred miles and two and a half hours. Whoo,
just like the cartoons I used to see as a kid. God,
(13:38):
what a dumb species we are. We're so dumb and
we waste time saying, oh, these guys, these guys are
really bad at their job. You know, they're really no good. No,
they're not.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
They're good at their job.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
You just assumed that their job was building a high
speed rail system.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
It wasn't.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Their job was milking us for billions of day and
then running off with it. They're extremely good at their job.
You are not very good at detecting thieves criminals. You
vote for criminals over and over again. They appoint other
criminals to run their agencies, and they run all kinds
(14:18):
of emotionally manipulative campaigns and commercials, and you go, oh wow,
that'd be cool. Have a high speed railly. We're never
going to do that. How the hell were they going
to get through the mountains?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Huh?
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Are we going to get some money back?
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Are we?
Speaker 5 (14:35):
Hey, if it's not going to.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Happen, another comedian here, Yeah, we're going to get money back.
We're going to get a full refund on the whole thing. Well,
that's one wrinkle that Trump has. He's looking at this
idea that out of all the money that Musks' is
Doze agency saves, they put eighty percent into paying down
(15:01):
the debt, and then twenty percent goes back to the
tax payers. Okay, we all get out and I'll take
that deal. That's a great deal me too. Now we
could all get we all get refunds because they have
a lot of money now that they have that they
have clawed back.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
In fact, I'm good at Wall Street Journal. I'll do
this next.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Wall Street Journal has a great article on all the
improper payments that these agencies have made, and it's hundreds
of billions of dollars of improper payments. And get this,
they know that they've made improper payments. In fact, they
announced it publicly. Yes, we've had forty two billion dollars
(15:41):
in improper payments this year.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
They announced it. They just don't do anything about it.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
They don't stop the payments, they don't get the money back,
and then next year there are hundreds of billions of
dollars of more improper payments. It's an unbelievable story. The
headline is DOSE is searching for wasteful spending. It isn't
hard to find. Identifying the waste isn't the hard part.
It's actually doing something about it.
Speaker 7 (16:05):
I have an idea, what, well, why don't we not
pay taxes for a couple of years.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
It's a good one. Yeah, you know, they're firing six
thousand I R R S agents.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
That's right. So this is the year.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
This is the year you go first. Now I'm going
to follow you.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Yeah, and I'm gonna announce it on the air that
I'm not paying my taxes.
Speaker 5 (16:30):
But there's not gonna be anybody to audit you.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
I am not teaming up with you as a criminal.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
It was just a suggestions a way of us.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I'm getting some money. You've guaranteed you're both gonna get audited.
Speaker 5 (16:41):
Now, I didn't say we were going to do it.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
I'm gonna get you a job with high speed rail.
More coming up.
Speaker 6 (16:50):
You're listening to John Cobel's on demand from KFI AM
sixty one.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
More note on the high speed Rail of fiasco, because
as Sean Duffy, the Transportation Secretary for Trump, was in
town today saying they're going to do a compliance review,
which means they're going to be shutting the federal money spigott.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Off for this garbage.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
And I was just looking through past audits here I
mentioned this before. Here, here's another audit, and this one
was done in twenty ten. This was just this was
less than two years, less than two years after the
after that referendum past at the ballot authorizing the borrowing
(17:37):
of almost ten billion dollars to finance high speed rail.
The auditor found that the High Speed Rail Authority does
not ensure that work is actually performed by contractors before
paying invoices.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
This was fifteen years ago.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
They had already been flagged by an auditor for paying
contractor for paying contractors before the work was done, and
they paid four million dollars to regional contractors without documentation
saying the work was completed. The auditor also determined that
the High Speed Rail Authority had no system for tracking
(18:18):
administration costs and pre construction costs as required by state law,
and consequently risks prematurely exhausting funds limited for those purposes.
So within two years there were auditors saying, hey, there's
no records here, and they kept finding that with every audit.
Hey there's no records because people were stealing it for
(18:43):
seventeen years. All right, here's more, And this is from
Doje and Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Now you tell
me what you think is cool here. If you have
all your panties bunched up in a snit over Trump
and Musk, you tell me what I'm about to relay
(19:06):
to you. Is any of this cool with you? Shouldn't
all this be stopped and reversed?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Washington? No.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
The Wall Street Journal has said that identifying wasted, wasteful
outlays is it the hardest part, it's actually doing something
about it. The federal government, by their own admission, misspends
at least one hundred billion dollars each year, one hundred
(19:35):
billion dollars each year. It's called improper payments, and they
document their improper payments. Here are the categories fraud, but
also underpayments, duplicate payments, payments to ineligible recipients or for
ineligible goods or services. Also amounts that didn't follow regulations,
(20:00):
such as a contract missing a required signature.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Oh, that makes it a fake contract.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
The most recent fiscal year, September twenty twenty four, the
agencies that reported improper payments identified one hundred and forty
nine billion dollars one hundred forty nine billion dollars. They
passed a law in two thousand and two and revised
it in twenty ten, twenty thirteen, and twenty twenty. More
(20:30):
than ninety percent of the improper payments were over payments.
So they've passed the law four times to report improper
payments and they report them at ninety percent or overpayments,
but they do don't do anything about them. And it's
the Social Security Agency, it's the EPA, the National Science Foundation.
Speaker 5 (20:51):
How come I'm never overpaid?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
I have never gotten an overpayment. I used to play
Monopoly as a kid, and this phrase they're always stuck
in my head. Bank error in your favor and you
get two hundred dollars. Remember that I never got a
bank er in my favor. I never got a government
error in my favor. And I'm reading this and I'm
envious all these billions and billions of dollars.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Of overpayments and none of them came to me. Are
you all right?
Speaker 3 (21:22):
So here's here's the category, and again this is the
government admitting it. Medicare thirty one point seven billion dollars
in improper payments, Medicaid thirty one billion, Medicare advantage nineteen billion,
Medicare prescription drug benefits three and a half billion, the
(21:44):
insurance the Children's in the Children's Health Insurance program one billion.
So just because you're gonna hear that Trump is gonna
want to cut Medicare and Medicaid and everybody's got.
Speaker 5 (21:57):
To do that, that's all people are done.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
No, the old people are getting sixty two billion dollars
in overpayments. The Treasury Department gives out sixteen billion dollars
in improper payments for It's called the earned income tax credit. Oh,
those are the payments that go to people who don't
pay taxes. You know, if you don't pay taxes, the
(22:26):
government sends you other people's tax money. It's true, and
they came up with this fancy they called earned income
tax credit.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Wait, yeah, what Yeah, no, it's a real thing.
Speaker 7 (22:41):
So if I don't want to pay my taxes, I
didn't say I'm.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Not going to, you're gonna get You're really billiing a case.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
Well, the thing is I pay every year, okay, but
if I didn't.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
If if you didn't earn enough money to pay taxes,
then they give you money. Okay, it's a welfare program.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
Oh oh, well you didn't say that.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
That's the whole point.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
They came up with a fancy name so most people
wouldn't realize it's a welfare program. Earned income tax credits
sounds like, oh, well they earned it.
Speaker 5 (23:15):
Exactly right.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
It must be what I thought.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
I thought I was getting screwed something.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Now the whole country has been fooled by this additional
child tax credits three billion in over payments. American Opportunity
Tax Credit one and a half billion. I don't get
any of these either. In the Agriculture Department, there's ten
and a half billion dollars in overpayments to the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program that is SNAP. You may have heard
(23:38):
of that acronym. The National School Lunch Program one and
a half billion dollars in overpayments. What is that extra carrots? I?
What extra peanut butter and jelly? The Social Security Administration
six billion, six and a half billion dollars in SSI payments,
(24:01):
four billion for Old Age Survivors and Disability Insurance, another
five billion for the Federal State Ninsurance Unemployment Insurance Division.
In the Labor Department, the Federal Highway Administration overpaid by
a billion dollars. The Small Business Administration has a paycheck
(24:22):
protection program that was almost two billion in overpayments. Improper payments,
the loan guarantee approvals that's over a billion. In fact,
some of these departments, twenty five percent of the money
they pay out is for improper payments, twenty five percent
(24:43):
of the entire department, and the most of that is overpayments.
Top government agencies by overpayments were covered Health and Human
Services almost thirteen billion, Social Security, five billion, Defense a
half and others. There's all these these graphs, and these
(25:05):
are all the government numbers.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
So it's true.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
But none of the other presidents ever did anything about this.
Republican and Democrat and Trump the first time around, nobody
ever did anything. Yeah, at a Republican Congress, Democrat congress
split Congress didn't matter. Nobody ever cared because you keep
sending them money, no questions asked. And then when they
(25:28):
say we've got a cut, they send out protest groups, going,
no cut.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Our medicaid, our grandmothers and children are going.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
To die again. Emotional manipulation. They don't tell you that
they give out one hundred and fifty billion dollars in
overpayments every year and the money's not never recovered.
Speaker 7 (25:47):
It's like that gas tax that was on the ballot
how many years ago, and yeah, and the commercials were
we're not going to have there won't be any police
officers and your roads aren't going to be safe and
this and that and yeah, blah.
Speaker 5 (25:59):
Blah blah blah bla law and people fall for it,
and they do.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
We are, especially in this state, we are a state
full of suckers. You'll believe any crap that the government
tells you, and it's no wonder.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Everything is a disaster because they're smarter than you are.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
The people in Sacramento in LA are corrupt, they're criminals,
and they're much smarter than you are because they craft
these clever emotional pitches and you always go.
Speaker 6 (26:32):
You're listening to John Cobbels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
A lot of time this week on the idiot Karen Bass,
who admitted to Alex Michaelson on Fox eleven that she
didn't know that fire weather was coming.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
She didn't know.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
In an alternate universe, Rick, if people are rational and
voted on competence and intelligence, Rick Caruso would be mare.
Rick Caruso has started a nonprofit organization, Steadfast LA, to
try to fast track rebuilding for people. And here's what
his organization has accomplished. And it was announced yesterday. Here's
(27:18):
a report from ABC seven Josh Haskell.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
So many here in Altadena who want to rebuild, they
just have no idea how they can afford it. Well,
Steadfast LA is targeting that group. Eighty to one hundred
modular homes are headed to communities like Altadena and also
the Palisades impacted by our fires, so those who lost their.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Homes can stay in the communities that.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
They love now. The Northern California based company Samara and Airbnb,
with help from the Caruso Family Foundation, will construct and
install factory built homes that only take five to six
months to make and can be installed.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
In as little as few as a few weeks.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
Steadfast LA, made up of private sector leaders founded by
Rick Caruso, says they believe prefab construction is key to
rebuilding as LA, as it keeps costs down and limits delays.
We spoke with Ronald Dunlap, who's lived in Altadena since
nineteen seventy five. He lost his home and said insurance
(28:20):
will only cover half of the cost to rebuild, so
he will be one of the first to receive a
new modular home.
Speaker 8 (28:27):
I just want to be home, but you know, if
we're not home, then we have to try to find
someplace else, and that is a daunting task because altinting
was you don't really realize how perfect your life is
until it's gone. It looks like a place that we
could actually feel like being home again. That it's substantial
enough that.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
We can put down roots again.
Speaker 9 (28:51):
These homes are intended for people who probably have lived
in the community a long time. We're probably house for
its cash poor under insurance. Maybe they are also older,
they don't have the time or the inclination to rebuild
a house, but want to get back to their community,
certainly of low and moderate income. They're going to qualify
in Altadena, They're going to qualify in the Palisades, They'll
(29:12):
qualify in Malibu, wherever that need exists. And Josh I
just want to say, this is just the start. So
we've got a generous donation. We're going to raise thirty
million dollars around it. That's going to probably provide about
eighty to one hundred homes, and then I want to
grow it from there with other home providers and other
home builders, and we're going to get other donations. I'd
(29:35):
love to get this up to one thousand now.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
Although this is funded by steadfast LA, steadfast LA needs
the city in county to waive fees and also help
with the permitting process. I'm told once that happens in
locks are cleared, those modular homes will arrive there.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
You go eighty two one hundred modular homes Altadena Palisade.
You heard Caruso, strong, decisive, intelligent, detailed plan. Compare that
to Bass yesterday bumbling and fumbling trying to explain why
she didn't know the fires were coming, and claiming that
(30:12):
the fire chief didn't think there was much danger because
we always have Santa Ana wins.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
But the intelligence of voters in Los Angeles. They went
with someone who can't read a National Weather Service warning
and then flies off to Africa, as opposed to Rick Caruso,
who's not taking any money for this.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
He's not like sober Off.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
This is He's got this organization and they're gonna put
in these hundred modular homes just as soon as the
cities get their act together and clean the lots and
streamline the permitting process.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Although there were warnings that I frankly wasn't aware of.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Yeah, good joy.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
In an alternate universe, the Palisades is still with us.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
We've got Conway being song with you. Who's putting in
the modular homes? Versa? Oh is that right? Yeah? All right?
Look good for him. You know, he's got plenty of money.
I liked it.
Speaker 10 (31:14):
He came out with us, and he's doing this charity
on you know, and not putting together LA. I said, hey,
how do people donate and he said, no, we're not
taking donations. We got the money. That's when you know
they're wealthy people. Yeah, they're not taking any donations. Yeah,
well they got it's all the other wealthy people.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
And yeah that's where it should be. Yeah, you know,
and they're.
Speaker 10 (31:32):
Doing it right. Don't give them money to the city.
The city will just blow it. Yeah, they like they've
done time and time again. Yeah, for fifty years. We
have the original pantry downtown LA. They're threatening to close.
We'll tell you about that. Kentucky Fried Chicken is leaving Kentucky. Yeah,
really kind of crazy, huh. And then Forever twenty one
(31:53):
is going out of business. I don't know where you're
going to have shop for your clothes.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Now, I look cute in that stuff. You know they
have a where you got your shirt?
Speaker 10 (32:00):
That's where I got this. Yeah, you know, Forever twenty
one has a plus size store as well. I don't
know if they're going out of business or not. It's
called Forever to twenty.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
One, is that right? That's right? All right? And then
anything else. I don't think so.
Speaker 10 (32:19):
No, Yeah, hockey today Canada, USA. Big game, big game,
big game, Oh, big, big game. And then Gavin Newsom,
I's proposing one hundred and twenty five million dollars for
mortgage relief for the wildlife victims. Gotta be some kind
of attachment to that. There's gotta be some kind of downside.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
I would that. Yeah.
Speaker 10 (32:36):
And then the passengers at the and the Toronto plane crash,
you're all getting some money, big check. Oh yeah, yeah,
thirty thousand dollars each, and they can still sue the airline.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
This is just a big sorry, right.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
I see you get flipped upside down for thirty thousand. Right,
you have a family of four, one hundred and twenty grand.
Take that on a heartbeat. Got thirty grand the upside down.
I'll get thirty grand.
Speaker 10 (32:59):
In every anybody listening right now and be like, oh,
as long as I survive, I'd take it in a heartbeat.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Yeah, unless you're Caruso, Well yeah, you don't need to
go through that.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Conway's next with Krusher has the news live in the
CAFI twenty for our newsroom. Hey, you've been listening to
the John Covelt Show podcast. You can always hear the
show live on KFI Am six forty from one to
four pm every Monday through Friday, and of course anytime
on demand on the iHeartRadio app
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John Kobylt
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