November 4, 2022 • 10 mins
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What a pleasure it is to talk to ln Hey Chenny.
He's a candidate for California State Controller. Fellow with the
Hoover Institution, Director of Domestic Policy Studies at Stanford University.
Is a day job. Lon. He welcome, How are you happy? Friday?
Gonna be with you both. Yeah, we don't want to
spend our valuable time with you on just this topic, obviously,
and there'll be plenty of time to discuss it. But
(00:20):
first thoughts. When you hear that Trump is running, I
don't think it should be surprising. I think it's something
he's talked about doing. The two thousand campaign is going
to be very interesting because fundamentally, it's going to be,
in my mind, a question of do you want, uh,
you know, two politicians of the past, right, you have
people who are in their seventies, I think late seventies,
(00:42):
or do you want, you know, a fresh vision? And
I think both parties are going to have to struggle
with that question because you know, it's very hard if
if President Biden decides to run for reelection, which who
knows if he does or not, that's gonna be sort
of very difficult for people in his party. Then to
turn around and say, well, we want to go with
someone else. It's very hard to turn out an income
in president in that way. Uh. And then on the
(01:04):
flip side, Republicans have to ask a question do they
want to pass or do they want something new? So
it's going to be a fascinating contest. Both sides are
going to have to deal with those generational questions as
well as questions of whether the politics of the past
or the politics of the future, or what they want.
All right, we uh, as Jack said, had plenty of
time to talk about that in the days and weeks
to come. God help us. Um I happen to come
(01:24):
across a couple of articles today, Lani that that dealt
with California, But these are universal questions. They have to
do with programs, in this case dealing with homelessness in
which there are various auditors, like in Oakland or in
the state saying, hey, we spent a tremendous amount of
money on this program, and the percentage of people that
actually helped is very, very low. And this is I
(01:47):
think this is a huge topic that doesn't get discussed
nearly enough. How does accountability for money spent work in government?
And how should it work. Well, that's a great question
right now. I don't know that it does quite honestly.
I think the problem you have is that you've got
certain people who occasionally decide that they want to demonstrate
(02:10):
accountability when an election comes near, and so they go
and they you know, maybe run an auditor. They answer
a few questions, and they try and make it seem
as though they are being responsive to taxpayers. There doesn't
tend to be a unified function in many places. Now California,
which is an obviously state where I am and where
I'm running for state controller. That is the job of
the state controller. The state controller is supposed to be
(02:31):
the head audit official for the state, and it's supposed
to consolidate and and really give to taxpayers consolidated as
well as unified information on how state spending is being
applied to address these various challenges. Homelessness is a great example.
You know, we really struggle with that in California. We've
seen the problem get a lot worse over the last
couple of years, and it's certainly not for a lack
of spending. We've spent you know, somewhere between ten and
(02:53):
twenty billion dollars over the last couple of years on homelessness,
only to see that problem get worse. Now, occasionally we
get a glimpse at how bad this spending is, because
the City of Los Angeles will produce a report, for example,
that shows that a cost of construction per unit of
housing per homeless individual is eight thousand dollars, and everybody says,
holy crap, how is that possible? Yeah, that's shocking, right,
(03:17):
And then you'll hear the city of Oakland say something,
in the city of San Francisco say something. And really,
that responsibility needs to fall to a single official or
at least you know, one or two officials in the
state to be identifying where the money is going, but
more importantly, to be talking about the efficacy or lack
there over that spending. So accountability is not just a
buzz word. It shouldn't just be a buzzword. People need
(03:39):
to live that out on a daily basis. Given how
much money in taxes we spend in many of our states,
as well as at the federal level. Well, and it's
astounding and horrifying that while business and every responsible family
spends a lot of time virtually every day thinking about
all right, what are we spending money on and what
are we getting for it? The fact that government seems
(04:01):
to be excused completely from asking those questions. I mean,
if you could, somehow, as an expert in public policy,
whether in California or the United States, get that idea
to take hold, I mean, my god, I'd be in
favor of a Nobel prize for you in an Olympic
gold medal, and maybe former religion around your grammy grammy certainly,
because the fact that that's missing from public conversation is shocking. Yeah,
(04:26):
and uh, it is thrown around as a buzzword, and
I think there's never really any activity taken to move
the ball forward in terms of how do we actually
advance that kind of accountability. I mean, you know, many
states have this this idea of you know, you can
go online and you can see the states checkbook, for example.
I was talking to a couple of state auditors the
(04:47):
other day about the best practices that they apply in
their states, and they say, listen, you know, we want
to be as transparent as possible. Obviously, not all states
do this. California doesn't do this. Um, you can't go
online and see where you're mo is being spent, and
that would be like, you know, if the bank just
decided to wake up one day to bank wherever you bank,
and they said, you know, we're not We're not going
to show you your transactions. You just have to trust
(05:09):
that that it's being spent in the way you say
it's being spent. That's essentially what these states like California
are asking us to do. And I think at some
point people have it, you know, they just that taxpayers
say enough is enough, and they say, you know, we
want accountability. I hope that that enough is enough comes
Tuesday when we have our election. But I also know
that this is a long term project. This is a
long term effort to try and bring accountability and responsibility
(05:32):
and fiscal thoughtfulness to what we're doing. Because we cannot
keep throwing good money after bad and not solving problems.
We just can't keep doing it. How do how do
you break out of the conundrum of if a government
program gets started and doesn't work, the answer always seems
to be to throw more money at it, which doesn't
(05:52):
happen in the private world obviously. Yeah, and it's this
is always this is something that I find managing is
when I hear, for example, the governor Gavin Newsom talk
about issues in California and he says, well, we're doing great,
We're spending more money, and it's like, no, no, no no, no,
you don't understand. The measure of success is not whether
you spend more money. The measure of successes are you
(06:13):
solving the problem? If you think about this, you know,
I've met with a bunch of small business owners over
the last several months and they all say the same thing,
which is, if we're going to invest a certain amount
of money in something, whether it's new, a new piece
of equipment, or a new employee or whatever it is,
we're gonna want to make sure we're investing in them
and seeing what our return on investment is training, new equipment, etcetera.
(06:33):
And and everybody does this, right, It's just a basic concept,
but in government, nobody ever stops to say, hey, maybe
we should be looking at what our return on invested
capital has been. Does it make sense for us to
keep spending on programs that are hugely inefficient and effective
that don't solve the problem. I think we would all
agree that if you had a program that was actually working,
sure spend money on it. Let's make sure we're doubling
(06:55):
down on things that work. But nobody ever stops and says, hey,
is this working or not? Right? And so I just
want to bring a different mindset, and I think there
are others around the country who want us as well. Hey,
let's just bring a mindset to the job of is
this working or not? And if it's working, great, If
it's not, knock at all? Oh amen to that. Lanai
Chen with the Hoover Institution, Stanford University running for a
(07:16):
state controller in California. Hey, are you willing to say, Alani?
He uh, what states you think do well on these things?
Good transparency, good accountability? Yeah? You know several years ago
the state of Idaho. Excuse yeah, Idaho is one of them.
Was a mentioned Ohio first, but both Ohio and Idaho
are good examples. In Ohio many years ago, guy named
Josh Mandel, the former state treasurer who went on to
(07:37):
run for a couple of different offices. When he was treasurer,
he put in place a lot of accountability practices as
well as transparency portals and transparency kind of tools that
have been very, very helpful in maintaining accountability in that state.
Idaho is a much smaller state obviously, but they have
a similar mindset and have really applied technology well. In fact,
(07:58):
I talked to a technology for it or a few
days ago who is working with the state of Idaho
and a few other states around the country. Smaller states
to be sure, but states around the country to bring
to bear kind of these best transparency practices. For example,
once a government expenditure happens, it gets posted within seventy
two hours. Great idea, Right, it's our money, and once
you spend it, let us know within seventy two hours,
(08:21):
and then that prevents the kinds of shenanigans that you
get where billions and billions of dollars go out the door,
like we had in California and unfortunately many other states
nationally a hundred and sixteen billion dollars in unemployment insurance
fraud during COVID, thirty billion of it in California. That
wouldn't have happened if we had a seventy two rule.
People would have seen, Hey, why is Scott Peterson getting
(08:41):
a check? Why is Diane Feinstein getting a check? This
is kind of weird, Like these are the sorts of
things basic. This is like, I'm not this is not
rocket science, right, this is not doesn't require a PhD
in molecular physics to figure out how to do this
very basic. Let's just get it done. And the reason
why these guys don't with the reason why these guys
and gals like to keep people in the dark is
(09:02):
because they thrive off of being the ones to hold
the information so that they can say no, no, no, no,
we need to spend more money because I have the
information and you don't. And you know that's just not
the way that should work. Are you buying a powerball ticket?
I actually have bought a couple of powerball tickets over
the last couple of months, but to no one's surprised,
(09:23):
I have not been successful. Okay, so you can do math.
So that's good for your position because it's unlikely that
you know, um, uh and uh. You're the only Republican
in memory that all of these major liberal newspapers have endorsed.
So clearly you should run for governor. Would you like
(09:44):
to announce that now or are you gonna wait until
you're done being controller? Believe me, Believe me, I am.
I am so focused on trying to get this over
the finish line on the day that I can't even
I can't even think about what I'm gonna have for breakfast.
But you're not ruling it out. We're just I'm doing
the whole No no, no, no no. Clearly, clearly he's
(10:05):
angling for the presidency, Jackis. I'll tell you something that's right.
I'm actually running to be global monarch. Beautiful name high
Lanie Lannie Chen Kennedy for California State Controller. It's always stimulating.
Thanks for the chat. Hey, thanks you guys. You got it.
So as you heard, he didn't say no um Art
(10:28):
Strong and Getty
What a pleasure it is to talk to ln Hey Chenny.
He's a candidate for California State Controller. Fellow with the
Hoover Institution, Director of Domestic Policy Studies at Stanford University.
Is a day job. Lon. He welcome, How are you happy? Friday?
Gonna be with you both. Yeah, we don't want to
spend our valuable time with you on just this topic, obviously,
and there'll be plenty of time to discuss it. But
(00:20):
first thoughts. When you hear that Trump is running, I
don't think it should be surprising. I think it's something
he's talked about doing. The two thousand campaign is going
to be very interesting because fundamentally, it's going to be,
in my mind, a question of do you want, uh,
you know, two politicians of the past, right, you have
people who are in their seventies, I think late seventies,
(00:42):
or do you want, you know, a fresh vision? And
I think both parties are going to have to struggle
with that question because you know, it's very hard if
if President Biden decides to run for reelection, which who
knows if he does or not, that's gonna be sort
of very difficult for people in his party. Then to
turn around and say, well, we want to go with
someone else. It's very hard to turn out an income
in president in that way. Uh. And then on the
(01:04):
flip side, Republicans have to ask a question do they
want to pass or do they want something new? So
it's going to be a fascinating contest. Both sides are
going to have to deal with those generational questions as
well as questions of whether the politics of the past
or the politics of the future, or what they want.
All right, we uh, as Jack said, had plenty of
time to talk about that in the days and weeks
to come. God help us. Um I happen to come
(01:24):
across a couple of articles today, Lani that that dealt
with California, But these are universal questions. They have to
do with programs, in this case dealing with homelessness in
which there are various auditors, like in Oakland or in
the state saying, hey, we spent a tremendous amount of
money on this program, and the percentage of people that
actually helped is very, very low. And this is I
(01:47):
think this is a huge topic that doesn't get discussed
nearly enough. How does accountability for money spent work in government?
And how should it work. Well, that's a great question
right now. I don't know that it does quite honestly.
I think the problem you have is that you've got
certain people who occasionally decide that they want to demonstrate
(02:10):
accountability when an election comes near, and so they go
and they you know, maybe run an auditor. They answer
a few questions, and they try and make it seem
as though they are being responsive to taxpayers. There doesn't
tend to be a unified function in many places. Now California,
which is an obviously state where I am and where
I'm running for state controller. That is the job of
the state controller. The state controller is supposed to be
(02:31):
the head audit official for the state, and it's supposed
to consolidate and and really give to taxpayers consolidated as
well as unified information on how state spending is being
applied to address these various challenges. Homelessness is a great example.
You know, we really struggle with that in California. We've
seen the problem get a lot worse over the last
couple of years, and it's certainly not for a lack
of spending. We've spent you know, somewhere between ten and
(02:53):
twenty billion dollars over the last couple of years on homelessness,
only to see that problem get worse. Now, occasionally we
get a glimpse at how bad this spending is, because
the City of Los Angeles will produce a report, for example,
that shows that a cost of construction per unit of
housing per homeless individual is eight thousand dollars, and everybody says,
holy crap, how is that possible? Yeah, that's shocking, right,
(03:17):
And then you'll hear the city of Oakland say something,
in the city of San Francisco say something. And really,
that responsibility needs to fall to a single official or
at least you know, one or two officials in the
state to be identifying where the money is going, but
more importantly, to be talking about the efficacy or lack
there over that spending. So accountability is not just a
buzz word. It shouldn't just be a buzzword. People need
(03:39):
to live that out on a daily basis. Given how
much money in taxes we spend in many of our states,
as well as at the federal level. Well, and it's
astounding and horrifying that while business and every responsible family
spends a lot of time virtually every day thinking about
all right, what are we spending money on and what
are we getting for it? The fact that government seems
(04:01):
to be excused completely from asking those questions. I mean,
if you could, somehow, as an expert in public policy,
whether in California or the United States, get that idea
to take hold, I mean, my god, I'd be in
favor of a Nobel prize for you in an Olympic
gold medal, and maybe former religion around your grammy grammy certainly,
because the fact that that's missing from public conversation is shocking. Yeah,
(04:26):
and uh, it is thrown around as a buzzword, and
I think there's never really any activity taken to move
the ball forward in terms of how do we actually
advance that kind of accountability. I mean, you know, many
states have this this idea of you know, you can
go online and you can see the states checkbook, for example.
I was talking to a couple of state auditors the
(04:47):
other day about the best practices that they apply in
their states, and they say, listen, you know, we want
to be as transparent as possible. Obviously, not all states
do this. California doesn't do this. Um, you can't go
online and see where you're mo is being spent, and
that would be like, you know, if the bank just
decided to wake up one day to bank wherever you bank,
and they said, you know, we're not We're not going
to show you your transactions. You just have to trust
(05:09):
that that it's being spent in the way you say
it's being spent. That's essentially what these states like California
are asking us to do. And I think at some
point people have it, you know, they just that taxpayers
say enough is enough, and they say, you know, we
want accountability. I hope that that enough is enough comes
Tuesday when we have our election. But I also know
that this is a long term project. This is a
long term effort to try and bring accountability and responsibility
(05:32):
and fiscal thoughtfulness to what we're doing. Because we cannot
keep throwing good money after bad and not solving problems.
We just can't keep doing it. How do how do
you break out of the conundrum of if a government
program gets started and doesn't work, the answer always seems
to be to throw more money at it, which doesn't
(05:52):
happen in the private world obviously. Yeah, and it's this
is always this is something that I find managing is
when I hear, for example, the governor Gavin Newsom talk
about issues in California and he says, well, we're doing great,
We're spending more money, and it's like, no, no, no no, no,
you don't understand. The measure of success is not whether
you spend more money. The measure of successes are you
(06:13):
solving the problem? If you think about this, you know,
I've met with a bunch of small business owners over
the last several months and they all say the same thing,
which is, if we're going to invest a certain amount
of money in something, whether it's new, a new piece
of equipment, or a new employee or whatever it is,
we're gonna want to make sure we're investing in them
and seeing what our return on investment is training, new equipment, etcetera.
(06:33):
And and everybody does this, right, It's just a basic concept,
but in government, nobody ever stops to say, hey, maybe
we should be looking at what our return on invested
capital has been. Does it make sense for us to
keep spending on programs that are hugely inefficient and effective
that don't solve the problem. I think we would all
agree that if you had a program that was actually working,
sure spend money on it. Let's make sure we're doubling
(06:55):
down on things that work. But nobody ever stops and says, hey,
is this working or not? Right? And so I just
want to bring a different mindset, and I think there
are others around the country who want us as well. Hey,
let's just bring a mindset to the job of is
this working or not? And if it's working, great, If
it's not, knock at all? Oh amen to that. Lanai
Chen with the Hoover Institution, Stanford University running for a
(07:16):
state controller in California. Hey, are you willing to say, Alani?
He uh, what states you think do well on these things?
Good transparency, good accountability? Yeah? You know several years ago
the state of Idaho. Excuse yeah, Idaho is one of them.
Was a mentioned Ohio first, but both Ohio and Idaho
are good examples. In Ohio many years ago, guy named
Josh Mandel, the former state treasurer who went on to
(07:37):
run for a couple of different offices. When he was treasurer,
he put in place a lot of accountability practices as
well as transparency portals and transparency kind of tools that
have been very, very helpful in maintaining accountability in that state.
Idaho is a much smaller state obviously, but they have
a similar mindset and have really applied technology well. In fact,
(07:58):
I talked to a technology for it or a few
days ago who is working with the state of Idaho
and a few other states around the country. Smaller states
to be sure, but states around the country to bring
to bear kind of these best transparency practices. For example,
once a government expenditure happens, it gets posted within seventy
two hours. Great idea, Right, it's our money, and once
you spend it, let us know within seventy two hours,
(08:21):
and then that prevents the kinds of shenanigans that you
get where billions and billions of dollars go out the door,
like we had in California and unfortunately many other states
nationally a hundred and sixteen billion dollars in unemployment insurance
fraud during COVID, thirty billion of it in California. That
wouldn't have happened if we had a seventy two rule.
People would have seen, Hey, why is Scott Peterson getting
(08:41):
a check? Why is Diane Feinstein getting a check? This
is kind of weird, Like these are the sorts of
things basic. This is like, I'm not this is not
rocket science, right, this is not doesn't require a PhD
in molecular physics to figure out how to do this
very basic. Let's just get it done. And the reason
why these guys don't with the reason why these guys
and gals like to keep people in the dark is
(09:02):
because they thrive off of being the ones to hold
the information so that they can say no, no, no, no,
we need to spend more money because I have the
information and you don't. And you know that's just not
the way that should work. Are you buying a powerball ticket?
I actually have bought a couple of powerball tickets over
the last couple of months, but to no one's surprised,
(09:23):
I have not been successful. Okay, so you can do math.
So that's good for your position because it's unlikely that
you know, um, uh and uh. You're the only Republican
in memory that all of these major liberal newspapers have endorsed.
So clearly you should run for governor. Would you like
(09:44):
to announce that now or are you gonna wait until
you're done being controller? Believe me, Believe me, I am.
I am so focused on trying to get this over
the finish line on the day that I can't even
I can't even think about what I'm gonna have for breakfast.
But you're not ruling it out. We're just I'm doing
the whole No no, no, no no. Clearly, clearly he's
(10:05):
angling for the presidency, Jackis. I'll tell you something that's right.
I'm actually running to be global monarch. Beautiful name high
Lanie Lannie Chen Kennedy for California State Controller. It's always stimulating.
Thanks for the chat. Hey, thanks you guys. You got it.
So as you heard, he didn't say no um Art
(10:28):
Strong and Getty
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!