Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Whoever looks out for the taxpayer? Ever? That's my question.
Does anybody ever represent the taxpayer in any discussion? I
was thinking about it so earlier. We're talking with one
of our experts, Market Korean, on immigration and talking about
you know, the social welfare state and all that sort
of stuff. Then we were just talking with Craig gott
(00:21):
Walls about Obamacare and healthcare and subsidies and all that
sort of stuff, and you know, nobody's ever looking out
for the taxpayer. And then I just got this email
from my local school. Just got this free meals program
extended exclamation point, and it says, we have great news
to share. The US to part of Agriculture recently extended
it's free universal Meals program for kids eighteen and under
(00:44):
throughout the summer, so kids can now get one free
breakfast and one free lunch per child per day. And
it's always presented with exclamation points, and just isn't this fantastic?
And does anybody ever represent the taxpayer? Who might be saying,
like I'm in, what are these freaking meals costing me?
Why aren't these parents buying their kids their own food?
(01:06):
How many of these meals get eaten versus thrown in
the trash. God dang it, nobody ever represents that side
of the discussion that drives me crazy. Thanks for taking
the money, that's right. Thank you Michael bringing us into
this discussion and others joining us as long Hea Chen
candidate for California State Controller. He needs to control this.
(01:30):
David and Diane Stephy, fellow in American Public Policy Studies
at the Hoover Institution and the Director of Domestic Policy
Studies at Stanford lan He welcome to the Armstrong and
Getty Show. Hey Jack, great to be with you. I
just don't like all the exclamation points anybody. So somebody times,
somebody talks about spending taxpayer money, it's never ever, ever
from the other side your comments. Yeah, yeah, well you know,
(01:53):
and I think that explains in part why you've seen
such a growth in I mean, if you look back
over the last I don't know, two years, a lot
of people don't realize we've put six trillion dollars of
spending into the economy in the U S. Six trillion dollars,
And at no point along the way did somebody stop
(02:14):
and say, well, is that really going to be the
best idea. What are the implications of it? Now, some
of that spending, you can argue happened. You know, we're
in the midst of COVID, and you know we needed
to buy ppe and all this other stuff. Find so
maybe you give them a pass for the first trillions.
But then the next five trillion came along, and what
and what happened? Well, predictably, now everything costs more. I
(02:37):
saw a graphic that on the fourth of July, all
of the things we needed for picnics, right, hot dogs,
catch up, let us condiments. The price on all of
those things has escalated by in some cases over the
course of the last eighteen months. And and so the
problem with all of this sort of free money kind
(02:58):
of mentality that we have is that you're right, nobody
ever stops and says, well, what's the cost of it?
And by the way, who's keeping accountability to make sure
that the money that's being spent is actually going to
where it's going. You know, the school lunch thing you
mentioned is really interesting because there was an expose by
a great reporter named Susan Crapstree who writes for Real
Clear Politics, and she had had an expose about I
(03:21):
don't know, six months ago where she found that what
was happening with these free lunch funds was that they
were actually going into wealthy school districts, school districts where
the media income was an excess of like two a year.
I got interrupted, so the school. I just got this
email from my school. House sold behind me, crappy old
(03:41):
house square feet right next to the school sold for
a million point one to the other day. And they're
giving out free lunches a hundred feet from that house
that I'm paying for. What the hell is that? Well?
And it's like, you know, if the goal of the
pro graham was to target kids who really needed the lunches,
(04:02):
I think everyone would say, yeah, let but there's but
there's no But there's nobody keeping watch. And this is
one of the reasons why, you know, I mean, people
are always like, well, what the heck does the state
controller do well? The reality is this is the job
of the state controller is to be the watchdog to
make sure that when we see emails like this, we
follow up and investigate and say, hey, what's actually going
on in that school district. Are the kids who really
(04:23):
need the food getting it? Or is it going to
a bunch of other people who, frankly, let's be honest,
given given their income situation, probably can afford to buy
their kids lunch, and can we better you can we
better use those resources somewhere else to solve real problems like, oh,
I don't know, homelessness, the crime that we see on
our streets, all of the challenges that we have in
our state with infrastructure, Can we address those? And and nobody,
(04:46):
to your point at the beginning of our of our
segment here, nobody is paying attention to what the tax
payers need and want. And this is the problem we
have with state governments. The problem we have with the
federal government is that there's nobody they're keeping watching and
that that attitude and mentality has to change. Is that
something you would be doing if you end up being
California's state controller. Absolutely, the controller has the ability to
(05:10):
look into spending at the state level or any any
local jurisdiction that uses state money. So school districts are
a perfect example. We have had zero accountability around spending
in our public schools. I just want people to realize
how much money has gone into the public schools from
the federal government now if that money had gone to
(05:31):
help classrooms be safer for kids, or making sure that
teachers get paid what we want them to get paid.
If those were the things that we were spending money on,
I think everyone would say, Okay, we can accept that money.
The problem is I and I hear these stories from
school district board members across our state. There is so
much federal money coming in they don't know how to
(05:53):
spend it. I'm sure, I guarantee you that's happening out
of all the six you're just talking about it. If
they don't spend it, the money goes away. So they said,
we're going to spend it on stuff. We've gotta buy stuff.
But nobody is saying, hey, are you spending the money
in a way that is consistent with what the law
demands and requires. Is it consistent with what's going to
(06:14):
be best for our kids and our teachers, and our
parents and our families. Nobody's asking that question. And that's
why the State Controller's office is important. That's why I
want to do it. And by the way, you know,
it is a watchdog function, and so you can't trust
people in the Sacramento insider Cabal to to do the job.
They're just not gonna do it. All they're gonna do
(06:35):
is make sure their friends are happy and they're satisfying
all of the other politicians around Sacramento. And that's why
we've got to get an outsider in there. And that's
the kind of background I bring to the job. Um yeah, well,
I like that idea of state controller being a more
emphasized office. You know, I don't know if every state
has the same role or they have different names in
different places, but god damn it, I I hope society
(06:57):
gets to a place someday where we attention. We get
our paycheck. You see the number at the top, that's
what you made this month. And then you see this
number what you're actually getting to keep? All that other money,
Where did it go? What did it get spent on?
Why don't more people care about that? Well? It is interesting, right.
We we have a financial literacy issue in our country
(07:18):
where we need to help people understand exactly where their
money is going and what it's being used for. You know,
my son's eleven. Uh, he's taken to biking around with
his friends. It's the summer, of course, that's what they do,
and you know they end up every once in a
while at Basket Robbins. Great, they end up at Basket Robbins.
They buy a scoop of ice cream and my son
comes back and he says, I don't get it the
scoop of ice cream and said, you know, it was
(07:39):
two dollars, but they asked me for you know, two dollars,
and well, yes, then that's something called sales tax. And
he said, well, why don't they tell you about this?
And it's like, well, yeah they do, it's on the receipt.
But yeah, I mean, I suppose we could do a
better job of telling people they got a pay scales tax.
But his basic point is like, well, if I if
I knew it would cost the extra twenty five cents
that I would have budgeted accordingly, you know, I may
(08:02):
be wondering where that cents goes. And he's like, well,
what do you think it goes that? And I'm like,
great question, great question. I'm actually not sure where it goes.
But somebody needs to figure that out. And and this
is the this is the thing for people across our
state and across our country. It's like, you know, the
the issue we have is that there's no accountability for
where this money is going. I think people would feel
(08:23):
a lot better if if we actually knew where the
money was going, and we felt comfortable saying, Okay, let's
determine whether this is a good use of spending or not. Unfortunately,
you know, we don't have that. UM. I don't know
that there's any mouthfeasance going on here. But there's a
couple of schools where I've seen them do I like,
when I'm playing at the part of my kids do
some paving jobs around the school that I think, why
(08:43):
are you doing that? I don't see what the problem was,
or I feel like they're just trying to spend some
of that money that's got to be happening various places. Yeah,
I think it is. And and you know the problem
is there are a lot of places around the state
where we probably could use actual you know, paving of
the roads or pay and and and and you know
the problem and the challenge again comes back to all
(09:06):
of this money has flooded into California and they can't
spend it fast enough. You know, people wonder why we
had twenty billion dollars in fraud in our unemployment insurance system.
I don't know if you've heard about this wrapper that
got arrested. He basically was flaunting how he defrauded taxpayers
in California. The focus of his rap was basically how
(09:27):
he was making a living off of off of defrauding
people through the unemployment insurance system. And the reason this
happens is because the proper controls aren't in place. Nobody
is stopping and saying, hey, does it make sense for
you to give benefits to everybody, even if maybe they're
not qualified? And and nobody saw fit to ask these questions,
and so twenty billion dollars later, I want folks to
(09:47):
realize we had a three set increase in the gas
tax on July one here in Californias. Okay, for the
amount of money these fraudsters took from us, they could
have paid. We could have paid for thirty eight year. Wow,
thirty eight years. And and and by the way, you know,
nothing to see here. You have to do some nothing
(10:08):
to see the Democratic leadership in the state of California.
Nothing to see here. Move right along. Let's oh, don't
don't go away. Phone here. Okay, you're back. Uh sorry,
we lost you there just briefly. And I understand exactly
what you're saying. Uh, nobody's paying any attention to that. Hey,
I gotta ask you a question before you go. By
the way of if you vote in California, vote for
(10:30):
Long Eachen for California State Controller. I mean he's being
he's being endorsed by people that never endorsed Republicans, because
we need that. I got a question for you. So
polling came out this week. We've got the lowest numbers
ever for UH. Belief in the institution of the Supreme Court,
Congress is at seven percent, the belief in the presidency
(10:52):
wrong track is now almost How big a problem is
this for a country to have those numbers. Yeah, it
is a problem when institutional people's belief in institutions get
gets eroded like it's been eroded. And the Supreme Court
is interesting. You know, it used to have approval ratings
that were north of seventy or eight. But like everything else,
(11:15):
everything else has become polarized, you know, whether it's the
presidency or Congress. Uh, it's become polarized. And I think
it's a big problem for American democracy because one of
the things that our democracy relies on is faith and
trust in institutions, and it's very difficult to have that
when everything has been so polarized. And unfortunately, I wish
I could say that I saw better days ahead, but
(11:36):
the problem is everything is polarized. I mean, I don't
care what it is, even stuff outside of politics, you know,
social media and pop culture. Everything has become polarized. So
I do worry about that. I mean, it's tational. Like
the Supreme Court, it is their responsibility to interpret the law,
to uphold the rule of law, to to call other
branches of government out when they cross the line, and
(11:57):
they serve that function legitimately. And I think part of
the challenges that people look at it and they say,
you know, I don't really buy that institution stuff anymore
because I don't agree with them. And you know, the
Constitution doesn't say that you believe in institutions when you
agree with them. The Constitution says, here the institutions, here's
what they're supposed to do. And and we have a
(12:17):
system of government that's worked for as long as worked
because we believe in institutions. And so I do worry
about it, Jack, I worry about where we're headed. Yeah,
I do too, and I I got to believe that
those numbers don't get reversed very easily. I mean, that
would take years and years to rebuild that sort of
faith in those institutions, which you know, I don't. I
(12:38):
don't even know if it's impossible. But anyway, long hy
Chen candidate for California State Controller, and all kinds of
other stuff. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks Jack
rich With you aren't
Whoever looks out for the taxpayer? Ever? That's my question.
Does anybody ever represent the taxpayer in any discussion? I
was thinking about it so earlier. We're talking with one
of our experts, Market Korean, on immigration and talking about
you know, the social welfare state and all that sort
of stuff. Then we were just talking with Craig gott
(00:21):
Walls about Obamacare and healthcare and subsidies and all that
sort of stuff, and you know, nobody's ever looking out
for the taxpayer. And then I just got this email
from my local school. Just got this free meals program
extended exclamation point, and it says, we have great news
to share. The US to part of Agriculture recently extended
it's free universal Meals program for kids eighteen and under
(00:44):
throughout the summer, so kids can now get one free
breakfast and one free lunch per child per day. And
it's always presented with exclamation points, and just isn't this fantastic?
And does anybody ever represent the taxpayer? Who might be saying,
like I'm in, what are these freaking meals costing me?
Why aren't these parents buying their kids their own food?
(01:06):
How many of these meals get eaten versus thrown in
the trash. God dang it, nobody ever represents that side
of the discussion that drives me crazy. Thanks for taking
the money, that's right. Thank you Michael bringing us into
this discussion and others joining us as long Hea Chen
candidate for California State Controller. He needs to control this.
(01:30):
David and Diane Stephy, fellow in American Public Policy Studies
at the Hoover Institution and the Director of Domestic Policy
Studies at Stanford lan He welcome to the Armstrong and
Getty Show. Hey Jack, great to be with you. I
just don't like all the exclamation points anybody. So somebody times,
somebody talks about spending taxpayer money, it's never ever, ever
from the other side your comments. Yeah, yeah, well you know,
(01:53):
and I think that explains in part why you've seen
such a growth in I mean, if you look back
over the last I don't know, two years, a lot
of people don't realize we've put six trillion dollars of
spending into the economy in the U S. Six trillion dollars,
And at no point along the way did somebody stop
(02:14):
and say, well, is that really going to be the
best idea. What are the implications of it? Now, some
of that spending, you can argue happened. You know, we're
in the midst of COVID, and you know we needed
to buy ppe and all this other stuff. Find so
maybe you give them a pass for the first trillions.
But then the next five trillion came along, and what
and what happened? Well, predictably, now everything costs more. I
(02:37):
saw a graphic that on the fourth of July, all
of the things we needed for picnics, right, hot dogs,
catch up, let us condiments. The price on all of
those things has escalated by in some cases over the
course of the last eighteen months. And and so the
problem with all of this sort of free money kind
(02:58):
of mentality that we have is that you're right, nobody
ever stops and says, well, what's the cost of it?
And by the way, who's keeping accountability to make sure
that the money that's being spent is actually going to
where it's going. You know, the school lunch thing you
mentioned is really interesting because there was an expose by
a great reporter named Susan Crapstree who writes for Real
Clear Politics, and she had had an expose about I
(03:21):
don't know, six months ago where she found that what
was happening with these free lunch funds was that they
were actually going into wealthy school districts, school districts where
the media income was an excess of like two a year.
I got interrupted, so the school. I just got this
email from my school. House sold behind me, crappy old
(03:41):
house square feet right next to the school sold for
a million point one to the other day. And they're
giving out free lunches a hundred feet from that house
that I'm paying for. What the hell is that? Well?
And it's like, you know, if the goal of the
pro graham was to target kids who really needed the lunches,
(04:02):
I think everyone would say, yeah, let but there's but
there's no But there's nobody keeping watch. And this is
one of the reasons why, you know, I mean, people
are always like, well, what the heck does the state
controller do well? The reality is this is the job
of the state controller is to be the watchdog to
make sure that when we see emails like this, we
follow up and investigate and say, hey, what's actually going
on in that school district. Are the kids who really
(04:23):
need the food getting it? Or is it going to
a bunch of other people who, frankly, let's be honest,
given given their income situation, probably can afford to buy
their kids lunch, and can we better you can we
better use those resources somewhere else to solve real problems like, oh,
I don't know, homelessness, the crime that we see on
our streets, all of the challenges that we have in
our state with infrastructure, Can we address those? And and nobody,
(04:46):
to your point at the beginning of our of our
segment here, nobody is paying attention to what the tax
payers need and want. And this is the problem we
have with state governments. The problem we have with the
federal government is that there's nobody they're keeping watching and
that that attitude and mentality has to change. Is that
something you would be doing if you end up being
California's state controller. Absolutely, the controller has the ability to
(05:10):
look into spending at the state level or any any
local jurisdiction that uses state money. So school districts are
a perfect example. We have had zero accountability around spending
in our public schools. I just want people to realize
how much money has gone into the public schools from
the federal government now if that money had gone to
(05:31):
help classrooms be safer for kids, or making sure that
teachers get paid what we want them to get paid.
If those were the things that we were spending money on,
I think everyone would say, Okay, we can accept that money.
The problem is I and I hear these stories from
school district board members across our state. There is so
much federal money coming in they don't know how to
(05:53):
spend it. I'm sure, I guarantee you that's happening out
of all the six you're just talking about it. If
they don't spend it, the money goes away. So they said,
we're going to spend it on stuff. We've gotta buy stuff.
But nobody is saying, hey, are you spending the money
in a way that is consistent with what the law
demands and requires. Is it consistent with what's going to
(06:14):
be best for our kids and our teachers, and our
parents and our families. Nobody's asking that question. And that's
why the State Controller's office is important. That's why I
want to do it. And by the way, you know,
it is a watchdog function, and so you can't trust
people in the Sacramento insider Cabal to to do the job.
They're just not gonna do it. All they're gonna do
(06:35):
is make sure their friends are happy and they're satisfying
all of the other politicians around Sacramento. And that's why
we've got to get an outsider in there. And that's
the kind of background I bring to the job. Um yeah, well,
I like that idea of state controller being a more
emphasized office. You know, I don't know if every state
has the same role or they have different names in
different places, but god damn it, I I hope society
(06:57):
gets to a place someday where we attention. We get
our paycheck. You see the number at the top, that's
what you made this month. And then you see this
number what you're actually getting to keep? All that other money,
Where did it go? What did it get spent on?
Why don't more people care about that? Well? It is interesting, right.
We we have a financial literacy issue in our country
(07:18):
where we need to help people understand exactly where their
money is going and what it's being used for. You know,
my son's eleven. Uh, he's taken to biking around with
his friends. It's the summer, of course, that's what they do,
and you know they end up every once in a
while at Basket Robbins. Great, they end up at Basket Robbins.
They buy a scoop of ice cream and my son
comes back and he says, I don't get it the
scoop of ice cream and said, you know, it was
(07:39):
two dollars, but they asked me for you know, two dollars,
and well, yes, then that's something called sales tax. And
he said, well, why don't they tell you about this?
And it's like, well, yeah they do, it's on the receipt.
But yeah, I mean, I suppose we could do a
better job of telling people they got a pay scales tax.
But his basic point is like, well, if I if
I knew it would cost the extra twenty five cents
that I would have budgeted accordingly, you know, I may
(08:02):
be wondering where that cents goes. And he's like, well,
what do you think it goes that? And I'm like,
great question, great question. I'm actually not sure where it goes.
But somebody needs to figure that out. And and this
is the this is the thing for people across our
state and across our country. It's like, you know, the
the issue we have is that there's no accountability for
where this money is going. I think people would feel
(08:23):
a lot better if if we actually knew where the
money was going, and we felt comfortable saying, Okay, let's
determine whether this is a good use of spending or not. Unfortunately,
you know, we don't have that. UM. I don't know
that there's any mouthfeasance going on here. But there's a
couple of schools where I've seen them do I like,
when I'm playing at the part of my kids do
some paving jobs around the school that I think, why
(08:43):
are you doing that? I don't see what the problem was,
or I feel like they're just trying to spend some
of that money that's got to be happening various places. Yeah,
I think it is. And and you know the problem
is there are a lot of places around the state
where we probably could use actual you know, paving of
the roads or pay and and and and you know
the problem and the challenge again comes back to all
(09:06):
of this money has flooded into California and they can't
spend it fast enough. You know, people wonder why we
had twenty billion dollars in fraud in our unemployment insurance system.
I don't know if you've heard about this wrapper that
got arrested. He basically was flaunting how he defrauded taxpayers
in California. The focus of his rap was basically how
(09:27):
he was making a living off of off of defrauding
people through the unemployment insurance system. And the reason this
happens is because the proper controls aren't in place. Nobody
is stopping and saying, hey, does it make sense for
you to give benefits to everybody, even if maybe they're
not qualified? And and nobody saw fit to ask these questions,
and so twenty billion dollars later, I want folks to
(09:47):
realize we had a three set increase in the gas
tax on July one here in Californias. Okay, for the
amount of money these fraudsters took from us, they could
have paid. We could have paid for thirty eight year. Wow,
thirty eight years. And and and by the way, you know,
nothing to see here. You have to do some nothing
(10:08):
to see the Democratic leadership in the state of California.
Nothing to see here. Move right along. Let's oh, don't
don't go away. Phone here. Okay, you're back. Uh sorry,
we lost you there just briefly. And I understand exactly
what you're saying. Uh, nobody's paying any attention to that. Hey,
I gotta ask you a question before you go. By
the way of if you vote in California, vote for
(10:30):
Long Eachen for California State Controller. I mean he's being
he's being endorsed by people that never endorsed Republicans, because
we need that. I got a question for you. So
polling came out this week. We've got the lowest numbers
ever for UH. Belief in the institution of the Supreme Court,
Congress is at seven percent, the belief in the presidency
(10:52):
wrong track is now almost How big a problem is
this for a country to have those numbers. Yeah, it
is a problem when institutional people's belief in institutions get
gets eroded like it's been eroded. And the Supreme Court
is interesting. You know, it used to have approval ratings
that were north of seventy or eight. But like everything else,
(11:15):
everything else has become polarized, you know, whether it's the
presidency or Congress. Uh, it's become polarized. And I think
it's a big problem for American democracy because one of
the things that our democracy relies on is faith and
trust in institutions, and it's very difficult to have that
when everything has been so polarized. And unfortunately, I wish
I could say that I saw better days ahead, but
(11:36):
the problem is everything is polarized. I mean, I don't
care what it is, even stuff outside of politics, you know,
social media and pop culture. Everything has become polarized. So
I do worry about that. I mean, it's tational. Like
the Supreme Court, it is their responsibility to interpret the law,
to uphold the rule of law, to to call other
branches of government out when they cross the line, and
(11:57):
they serve that function legitimately. And I think part of
the challenges that people look at it and they say,
you know, I don't really buy that institution stuff anymore
because I don't agree with them. And you know, the
Constitution doesn't say that you believe in institutions when you
agree with them. The Constitution says, here the institutions, here's
what they're supposed to do. And and we have a
(12:17):
system of government that's worked for as long as worked
because we believe in institutions. And so I do worry
about it, Jack, I worry about where we're headed. Yeah,
I do too, and I I got to believe that
those numbers don't get reversed very easily. I mean, that
would take years and years to rebuild that sort of
faith in those institutions, which you know, I don't. I
(12:38):
don't even know if it's impossible. But anyway, long hy
Chen candidate for California State Controller, and all kinds of
other stuff. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks Jack
rich With you aren't
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