Speaker 1: And we continue at one oh five in the afternoon
Speaker 1: on The John Phillips Show Live from Las Vegas, Nevada.
Speaker 1: Mister Randy Wang's in Culver City. All right, here's the
Speaker 1: latest AI scam. A ride share driver tried to get
Speaker 1: a passenger to pay a seventy five dollars fine for
Speaker 1: damage to a vehicle that was faked by an AI picture.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you this AI is a can of worms.
Speaker 1: Although you know what, it's made much easier for me.
Speaker 1: What's that travel?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Because typically you go to a new place and
Speaker 1: you don't know what restaurants to eat at, you don't
Speaker 1: know what part of town to stay in, and you
Speaker 1: tell AI what you'd like, and AI, I use GROC
Speaker 1: will tell you. We'll give you a list of restaurants,
Speaker 1: a list of hotels to stay at, and so far
Speaker 1: are the advice has been spot on.
Speaker 3: So what did you type into GROC for this trip?
Speaker 3: Who's got the loosest slots in Vegas?
Speaker 2: Answered? None of them?
Speaker 1: Eight hundred two two two five two two two is
Speaker 1: telephone number? What eight hundred two to two two five
Speaker 1: two two two. Well, despite the fact that we have
Speaker 1: spent a fortune on the nine one one system. Here
Speaker 1: in the state of California, the nine one one system
Speaker 1: doesn't really work in many parts of the state.
Speaker 3: The state of California has spent over a half a
Speaker 3: billion dollars trying to upgrade their nine one one system
Speaker 3: to something called next Gen nine one one, and the
Speaker 3: rollout has been a complete disaster, and whistleblowers are now
Speaker 3: speaking out about why it was such a total disaster.
Speaker 3: And what do you know, it all goes back to
Speaker 3: a guy appointed by Newsome Ugh.
Speaker 2: For more, I don't say. For more on this, we
Speaker 2: go to NBC in the Bay.
Speaker 4: For the first time.
Speaker 1: We're learning what may have led to the ouster of
Speaker 1: the man behind California's nine to one to one system
Speaker 1: overhaul and why this high price project went sideways.
Speaker 5: The upgrade has been a technical mess and a money pit.
Speaker 5: It cost Californians a half billion dollars and counting.
Speaker 3: See, and that's just to upgrade the system while we're
Speaker 3: still paying for the existing system. So we're paying double
Speaker 3: and this system doesn't work great.
Speaker 5: Senior investigator Candace Win has been pouring over those internal
Speaker 5: records to find the answers and she joins us.
Speaker 6: Now, Candace, we have been fighting for these records from
Speaker 6: the California Office of Emergency Services for more than a year.
Speaker 6: After sixteen months of filing requests even a demand letter
Speaker 6: from NBC attorneys, the office finally released them. Some of
Speaker 6: these records suggest serious problems with leadership and oversight of
Speaker 6: the state's Next Generation one upgrade. In Sacramento, California, emergency
Speaker 6: management leaders struggled to answer lawmakers questions about what's exactly
Speaker 6: wrong with the state's nine one one overhaul?
Speaker 4: Is the system operating properly? Now?
Speaker 7: I think the system is operating the way we've experienced.
Speaker 2: It, So now, what the hell does that mean?
Speaker 6: They also couldn't say who's responsible for the problems.
Speaker 8: Who's accountable for the delays and the costs overrun because
Speaker 8: nobody's there that was there when this started, Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe that's probably true.
Speaker 6: Yes, Now new details about that accountability are coming to light,
Speaker 6: and government records exclusively obtained by the NBC Bay Area
Speaker 6: Investigative Units. The California Office of Emergency Services, or CALOES,
Speaker 6: manages the project called Next Generation nine one one that's
Speaker 6: supposed to modernize our aging nine to one one calling system,
Speaker 6: adding video and better location capabilities.
Speaker 2: And it didn't do any of that. So funny.
Speaker 3: This is the kind of stuff that was straight out
Speaker 3: of Gavin Newsom's book Citizenville, that we're gonna and one
Speaker 3: of the things he ran on when he ran for
Speaker 3: governor in twenty eighteen is we're going to modernize the government.
Speaker 3: We're going to upgrade our computer systems. And at every
Speaker 3: angle where they actually were going to do that, it
Speaker 3: was a total disaster.
Speaker 1: Well look at this, Look at what happened with edd.
Speaker 1: Look at what's going on with the Secretary of State
Speaker 1: giving out all of those fraudulent business licenses to the
Speaker 1: hospice facilities in the San Fernando Valley. No one is
Speaker 1: minding the store across the board. And that's not even
Speaker 1: to mention the bullet rainex term alone.
Speaker 9: Look at the emergency.
Speaker 6: But seven years and nearly a half of billion dollars later,
Speaker 6: it's years behind schedule and as we've reported, was plagued
Speaker 6: with misrouted and dropped call problems that delayed emergency response.
Speaker 1: Me either a mediating work.
Speaker 3: Can you imagine getting that when you're calling nine one
Speaker 3: one because you're having a heart attack.
Speaker 1: Well, especially if you think about who's using nine one
Speaker 1: one Old people have a lot of medical problems. So
Speaker 1: you're eighty something, you're having a stroke, you're having a
Speaker 1: heart attack. You have it in you to go to
Speaker 1: the phone to call nine one one, and.
Speaker 2: That's what you hear.
Speaker 1: Is me medial war work.
Speaker 6: This twenty twenty four email from a next Gen nine
Speaker 6: to one one regional coordinator to a top project leader
Speaker 6: corroborates what we've heard.
Speaker 3: And just remember when you hear all of this. We
Speaker 3: are in the technology capital of the world. How hard
Speaker 3: would this have been to go to Google and say, hey,
Speaker 3: can you create a new nine to one one system
Speaker 3: for us?
Speaker 1: Keep in mind this is why whenever they ask you
Speaker 1: for a tax increase, whenever they ask you for a bond,
Speaker 1: the answer is no. It's not that you don't think
Speaker 1: that whatever it is that they're asking for money for
Speaker 1: doesn't deserve it. These people, the people in charge right now,
Speaker 1: cannot be trusted to spend the money correctly. This is
Speaker 1: what they do with the money. Imagine if they came
Speaker 1: to you and go, hey, our nine to one one
Speaker 1: system is old. We need an upgrade. Let's put a
Speaker 1: tax on the ballot to pay for it. That seems reasonable.
Speaker 1: I think most people would vote for it in California, Okay,
Speaker 1: But then this is what you get, and this is
Speaker 1: why you can't give them any more money.
Speaker 6: This twenty twenty four email from a next Gen nine
Speaker 6: one one regional coordinator to a top project leader corroborates
Speaker 6: what we've heard from inside sources who say state officials
Speaker 6: knew about serious issues and knew who was likely responsible
Speaker 6: as far back as six years ago. The coordinator wrote,
Speaker 6: when she started her role in twenty twenty, she learned
Speaker 6: quickly that the project lacked clear direction, operational knowledge, and
Speaker 6: the one person really in control was willing to risk
Speaker 6: lives for the sake of innovation. She says she was
Speaker 6: talking about Budge Courier, the visionary and architect who Governor
Speaker 6: Gavin Newsom appointed as Assistant Director of Public Safety Communication.
Speaker 3: This is the power that the governor has. They can
Speaker 3: make all kinds of appointments to all different kinds of bureaucracies.
Speaker 3: And when you put your friends in charge of very
Speaker 3: important projects instead of somebody who's qualified, disaster strikes.
Speaker 1: And this is also an argument that I use against
Speaker 1: people who are mad at me for arguing in favor
Speaker 1: of the Democrat lockout in November, and they say it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter because if there's a Republican elected governor, the
Speaker 1: legislature is going to block everything that they want to do. Well,
Speaker 1: you can appoint people to very sensitive positions. You have
Speaker 1: that power as the chief executive of the state. And
Speaker 1: one of those positions is the one that was just described.
Speaker 1: And just imagine, if nothing else, if a Republican governor
Speaker 1: can't do anything about the bullet train, can't do anything
Speaker 1: about the budget, can't do anything about crime or homelessness, whatever,
Speaker 1: if they can fix nine to one one by putting
Speaker 1: a competent person in that position, at least we get something.
Speaker 6: The visionary and architect who Governor Gavin Newsom appointed as
Speaker 6: Assistant Director of Public Safety Communication, he.
Speaker 10: Had professional network engineers that would tell him this is
Speaker 10: not going to work, we need to talk about this,
Speaker 10: we need to change this. And he told them that
Speaker 10: we're not going to change this.
Speaker 6: The insiders we've been touching.
Speaker 3: So the idiot that Gavin puts in charge won't listen
Speaker 3: to the experts when they say his thing won't work.
Speaker 1: And these are the same people who tell us that
Speaker 1: we can't trust an outsider to be elected to office
Speaker 1: because they don't have the experience. Look at what the
Speaker 1: people with the experience are doing when lives are at stake.
Speaker 6: The insiders we've been talking to, including this man on
Speaker 6: the next Gen team, say Courier knew some of the
Speaker 6: technology was problematic, but forced it through caloes's nine one
Speaker 6: one tech certification process and into real world environments.
Speaker 10: Anyway, Oh yeah, I was definitely hostile.
Speaker 3: This thing was not ready for prime time. Every place
Speaker 3: where they rolled it out it was a disaster, and
Speaker 3: they knew it would be and they don't care because
Speaker 3: they figure in a one party state there is no punishment.
Speaker 10: Oh yeah, I was definitely hostile.
Speaker 6: Separately, two high level CALOES sources tell our investigative units
Speaker 6: they tried sending out two dozen contract violation letters to
Speaker 6: hold vendors responsible and presented Courier data that they say
Speaker 6: identified critical flaws with the nine one one technology. But
Speaker 6: Courier dismissed the data, they say, and rejected many violations
Speaker 6: or is demanding that the project keep going.
Speaker 10: The guys they were afraid to make a move. They
Speaker 10: feared upsetting Budge. I heard him threaten them once.
Speaker 2: Who names their kid Budge al Bundi named his kid Bud.
Speaker 10: I heard him threaten them once or twice while he
Speaker 10: was there that he could fire all of them if
Speaker 10: they didn't do what he said. I heard him threaten
Speaker 10: them even after he left. Calloees said different conventions, pulling
Speaker 10: people aside, saying they're going to mess up the entire
Speaker 10: plan that he laid out and they could lose their jobs.
Speaker 4: How do you know this?
Speaker 2: I was there.
Speaker 10: I saw it. He was very loud.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Gavin Newsom is going to run for president
Speaker 1: as the guy who can bring the Democrats out of
Speaker 1: the wilderness. And he knows how to govern because he
Speaker 1: governed a big state. Look At how his team operates.
Speaker 1: Look at how abusive this individual is. Look at what
Speaker 1: Dana Williamson, his chief staff, was doing, which we learned
Speaker 1: only because she was charged with federal crimes. And we
Speaker 1: found out that she would get lit late at night
Speaker 1: and call people up and threaten them on behalf of
Speaker 1: the governor. This is the type of behavior that is
Speaker 1: allowed in a one party system. You can be abusive,
Speaker 1: you can be disrespectful, you can cross every ethical line
Speaker 1: known to man, and it's all fine because you're going
Speaker 1: to win the election regardless.
Speaker 2: This is what you're voting for California.
Speaker 10: I heard him threaten them once or twice while he
Speaker 10: was there that he could fire all of them if
Speaker 10: they didn't do what he said. I heard him threaten
Speaker 10: them even after he left. Caloees said different conventions, pulling
Speaker 10: people aside, saying they're going to mess up the entire
Speaker 10: plan that he laid out and they could lose their jobs.
Speaker 9: How do you know this?
Speaker 10: I was there, I saw it.
Speaker 2: He was very loud, truly going to save a lot
Speaker 2: of time in.
Speaker 6: The Courier didn't answer our questions about how he treated
Speaker 6: employees or allegations he dismissed warnings. He texted us saying
Speaker 6: the process to address employee grievances and contract violation letters
Speaker 6: were enforced. So what eventually happened to Currier? These text
Speaker 6: messages show he left the agency, but it was likely
Speaker 6: not his choice. Shortly after he parted ways with Callos
Speaker 6: in twenty twenty four, a manager at another agency texted
Speaker 6: the number two person on the project, well, is he gone?
Speaker 6: Access removed?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: How is this not on the front page of the
Speaker 1: La Times? This is a big deal and the La
Speaker 1: Times runs piece after piece. How many pieces did they run?
Speaker 1: Calling Larry Elder the blackface of white supremacy? Now they're
Speaker 1: going after Spencer Pratt because he no longer lives in
Speaker 1: his house after Karen Bass burned it down.
Speaker 2: They have time for all of that, but they don't
Speaker 2: have time to report on this. Luckily NBC in the
Speaker 2: Bay does is he gone?
Speaker 6: Access removed?
Speaker 8: Spill the tee.
Speaker 6: The manager wrote, he upset executives a few too many
Speaker 6: times and got ahead of being fired by retirements. The
Speaker 6: next Gen official responded, this was Calleyes's organization, right.
Speaker 2: So we're paying for this buffoon's pension now, Oh great?
Speaker 6: This was Calleyes's organization chart at the time. And these
Speaker 6: leaders are no longer with the agency since we started
Speaker 6: reporting on next Gen nine one one a year and
Speaker 6: a half ago. The people who've left include the agency's
Speaker 6: director and deputy director Caluis, and the Governor's office, which
Speaker 6: oversees the agency, sent us the same statement, saying through
Speaker 6: personnel changes, increased oversight and contractor accountability, the state is
Speaker 6: now working towards a renewed vision for next Gen nine
Speaker 6: to one to one.
Speaker 3: They're still going to try to roll this thing out
Speaker 3: even after we've wasted half a billion dollars and it
Speaker 3: doesn't work, and patting themselves on the back talking about
Speaker 3: what great leadership they have.
Speaker 10: I think it raises a lot of questions and it
Speaker 10: underlies exactly why we need an audit of the next
Speaker 10: generation nine one one.
Speaker 4: System nine one one is so important with.
Speaker 6: A nine to one to one project too big to fail,
Speaker 6: we cannot blow this. State lawmakers and analysts now say
Speaker 6: they question if the agency in charge should be in charge.
Speaker 4: And to just sit there and say that we're going
Speaker 4: to have the people who blew it with the last
Speaker 4: six years or so manage that even more seems to
Speaker 4: be very risky for the state of California.
Speaker 6: State legislative analysts recently recommended a total pause on the
Speaker 6: project until oversight issues are addressed. Meanwhile, the clock is
Speaker 6: ticking until KLAWEA says it wants all LA Area nine
Speaker 6: one one centers on next Gen.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, they want it to be here. These people
Speaker 2: are so stupid. It's really hard to believe.
Speaker 3: This is just one department in the many, many, many,
Speaker 3: many many departments that Gavin Newsom gets to appoint people too.
Speaker 3: And the results have been nothing short of a disaster.
Speaker 1: Everything they do is the bullet train. We know about
Speaker 1: the bullet train because we voted on it, and it's
Speaker 1: way past when you're supposed to be able to write it,
Speaker 1: and so there's attention on it. And Trump has taken
Speaker 1: an interest in the subject, and because Trump has taken
Speaker 1: an interest in the subject, it becomes national news. But
Speaker 1: here's the dirty little secret. Everything else is run the
Speaker 1: exact same way. All of the cost overruns, all of
Speaker 1: the money that's being stolen, all of the cronyism, all
Speaker 1: of the incompetence. It's edd it's at the Secretary of
Speaker 1: State's office, it's in the Department of Insurance, it's all
Speaker 1: over the state of California.
Speaker 2: It's with the nine to one to one system. This
Speaker 2: is how they run shop, and.
Speaker 1: From their point of view, they keep getting rewarded by
Speaker 1: being re elected until there are consequences for this behavior.
Speaker 1: Nothing is going to change nothing. And when you run
Speaker 1: shop like this, I might add, taxes can only go
Speaker 1: one way, and that's up because if everything costs triple
Speaker 1: what it's supposed to cost, and you have to pay
Speaker 1: for two systems at once, because the system that you're
Speaker 1: wed to doesn't work, then the costs explode and you
Speaker 1: didn't budget for any of that, so you constantly need
Speaker 1: to go to the public and ask for more money,
Speaker 1: and it becomes never ending. There's never enough. Because the
Speaker 1: incompetence is widespread. This state does not function. Think about
Speaker 1: the stories we've done today. You can't use the libraries
Speaker 1: anymore because the homeless have taken it over. Downtown Los
Speaker 1: Angeles is seeing buildings blow up four on one block
Speaker 1: in a short period of time because of squatters that
Speaker 1: the city refuses to remove. And now nine to one
Speaker 1: one doesn't work. We have a system that we know
Speaker 1: doesn't work, and now the state of California is going
Speaker 1: to try to force it on the largest county in
Speaker 1: the country, knowing it doesn't work. It's really hard to believe.
Speaker 1: When I travel and I tell people how the state
Speaker 1: is run, they don't believe me. The fact that Gavin
Speaker 1: Newsom is guarded as a top tier presidential candidate after
Speaker 1: producing all of this failure shows you how about a
Speaker 1: shape the Democratic Party is in nationally. They shouldn't want
Speaker 1: anything to do with this guy, Yet if the polls
Speaker 1: are accurate, they might nominate him to be president, and
Speaker 1: now Javier Bessera is the next one on the pipeline,
Speaker 1: the one that the Biden administration said was the worst
Speaker 1: pick Joe made. And think about all the bad decisions
Speaker 1: he made in four years, and that one was supposed
Speaker 1: to be the worst.
Speaker 11: Scrub it.
Speaker 1: And he may be the next governor. God help us.
Speaker 1: Eight hundred two two two five two two two is
Speaker 1: a telephone number. What eight hundred two two two five
Speaker 1: two two two. If you'd like to email the show,
Speaker 1: you can do sell it. Johnny don't like show at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. That's Johnny don't like show at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com.
Speaker 2: And Randy.
Speaker 1: Now that we're approaching the long weekend, we're not going
Speaker 1: to be doing live shows on Saturday, Sunday or Monday.
Speaker 1: But if you want to listen to us, you can
Speaker 1: do that quite easily.
Speaker 2: Well, and a lot of people are doing it. They're
Speaker 2: downloading the podcast of this show.
Speaker 3: Fun fact, over the last thirty days, our podcast of
Speaker 3: this noon to three show has been downloaded one hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty nine thousand times by thirty four thousand unique listeners.
Speaker 3: That's according to the statistics on the website where we
Speaker 3: post this stuff. That is exciting, so be part of
Speaker 3: the team here. Subscribe to The John Phillips Show on
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, Subscribe to the John Phillips Show on iHeartRadio,
Speaker 3: Subscribe to the John Phillip Show on Spotify. Although only
Speaker 3: five percent of our listeners do that, thirty four percent
Speaker 3: of them use Apple Podcasts, thirty three percent use iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: So there's some fun stats for you. And if you
Speaker 3: want to know who's listening from where, well, we have
Speaker 3: the vast majority of our listen and our downloads are
Speaker 3: happening in the United States, of course, in California, in
Speaker 3: cities like La and Oakland in San Jose, and Irvine
Speaker 3: in Pasadena. But Johnny, check this out. We have in
Speaker 3: the last thirty days six hundred and fifty five downloads
Speaker 3: in the UK, four hundred and ninety in Canada, three
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty in Singapore, two hundred and eighty two
Speaker 3: in South Korea, two hundred and fifty four in Australia,
Speaker 3: and two hundred and six in Mexico.
Speaker 1: Do you think that those are people who live in
Speaker 1: those countries who are listening to us or our listeners
Speaker 1: from southern California on vacation.
Speaker 3: I think it's a little of both. We had one
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty four downloads in Croatia, specifically eighty four
Speaker 3: downloads in the city of Clarkovac. Will it show you
Speaker 3: our top ten? Yes, if you want the top ten
Speaker 3: cities that we're in. LA's number one, then Pasadena, Irvine,
Speaker 3: Long Beach, Oakland, San Jose, Riverside, San Francisco, Sacramento, Berkeley.
Speaker 2: And then Okay, and then that would make sense.
Speaker 3: Vegas is up there, Phoenix is up there, Hutchinson, Kansas
Speaker 3: is up there, Portland is up there. We're all over
Speaker 3: the place. So the point is, subscribe to the podcast
Speaker 3: so we can brag about it and you know, hopefully
Speaker 3: make some money for the station. And on election night
Speaker 3: we're coming back for round two. Yeah, but we don't
Speaker 3: get paid extra for it, so you damn well better
Speaker 3: listen for it. It's The John Phillips Show Election Special
Speaker 3: seven to nine pm on Tuesday, June second. I know
Speaker 3: you probably want to watch the new season premiere of
Speaker 3: Love Island, but it's on streaming. You can watch it
Speaker 3: after nine o'clock. From seven to nine, you gotta be
Speaker 3: here with us as we give you the election results.
Speaker 3: When the polls close at eight. We're gonna be broadcasting
Speaker 3: live on kab KSFO and KMJ for this very special show.
Speaker 1: Now, speaking of trash TV, there's a new reality show
Speaker 1: or I don't know if it's new actually, but it's
Speaker 1: new to me, where everyone goes on a blind date
Speaker 1: in the nude. Are you familiar with this Dating Naked?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 11: Is it?
Speaker 2: Are you watching the American version or the UK version?
Speaker 10: No?
Speaker 1: I'm not watching it, but a friend of mine is
Speaker 1: going to be on it. Oh my, let me just
Speaker 1: tell you. There are many different versions of Dating Naked,
Speaker 1: but the version that's that the UK errors and the
Speaker 1: first season of it is on Paramount Plus. They don't
Speaker 1: blur anything out. Really you see everything of everybody and
Speaker 1: it is fascinating. What if you need to do something
Speaker 1: like uncork a bottle of wine, they just know if
Speaker 1: that would look good in the nude, They show all
Speaker 1: all of it.
Speaker 3: What if you drop something, they show that too interesting
Speaker 3: if you're looking, if you were curious as to what
Speaker 3: that looks like. There's also on HBO Max they have
Speaker 3: this British show that is another naked dating show called
Speaker 3: Naked Attraction, where you stand in a room and They
Speaker 3: have six people that are on a stage and they
Speaker 3: slowly reveal themselves, starting at their feet, then up to
Speaker 3: their torso, then up to their head, and you get
Speaker 3: to knock out which ones you don't want to pick
Speaker 3: until you finally find the person and the people that
Speaker 3: you're looking at are completely naked, and that one's completely
Speaker 3: uncensored too.
Speaker 1: Where do you go on a first date in the nude?
Speaker 1: You can't go to Applebee's, you can't go to a
Speaker 1: Laker game.
Speaker 3: Well, to be clear, they put the clothes on for
Speaker 3: the date, and then it gets much more awkward. Oh
Speaker 3: so they're not actually nude on the date on Dating Naked,
Speaker 3: they are, but on Naked Attraction they're only naked on
Speaker 3: the show. But then they go and put clothes on
Speaker 3: for the actual date at a bar that lasts about
Speaker 3: twenty minutes.
Speaker 2: That's stupid, all right.
Speaker 3: Then you might want to watch Dating Naked UK on
Speaker 3: Paramount Plus. It is fascinating, all right.
Speaker 1: So the State of California owes the federal government a
Speaker 1: ton of money. We went for a really long time
Speaker 1: on that subject. We did.
Speaker 3: The State of California owes the federal government twenty billion
Speaker 3: dollars from a loan that it took out for unemployment
Speaker 3: insurance during COVID And Johnny, what did the State of
Speaker 3: California do with all that unemployment money during COVID? They
Speaker 3: gave it to criminals who then spent it in Las
Speaker 3: Vegas and they didn't even tip. Well, some people are
Speaker 3: wondering why we haven't paid that money back because the
Speaker 3: state of California is the only state that still owes
Speaker 3: the federal government money from loans that it took out
Speaker 3: during COVID. For more on this, here is ABC ten
Speaker 3: in Sacramento State Matters.
Speaker 7: California is the only state still in debt to the
Speaker 7: federal government after a pandemic era a loan for unemployment
Speaker 7: insurance benefits.
Speaker 6: That outstanding debt is in the billions of dollars and
Speaker 6: it's costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars each
Speaker 6: year in interest.
Speaker 7: Alan ABC ten State Matters political reporter Jenny Husz here
Speaker 7: now to break down what experts call a systemic issue.
Speaker 8: The big concern is this, the longer California fails to
Speaker 8: pay back this debt, the more California businesses will have
Speaker 8: to pay.
Speaker 3: And when you realize that we have this much debt
Speaker 3: hanging over our heads. Everyone's saying that we have a
Speaker 3: balanced budget is full of crap, not even close.
Speaker 10: Well, I think it's completely irresponsible that California hasn't paid
Speaker 10: its debts yet.
Speaker 2: The governor can go out there and say we bounced
Speaker 2: the budget.
Speaker 8: Twenty billion dollars in COVID nineteen unemployment insurance debt that
Speaker 8: California has yet to pay back to the federal government.
Speaker 8: California is the only state to not have paid that back.
Speaker 12: California leads the way right.
Speaker 2: We're number one in being a deadbeat. By the way.
Speaker 1: That first voice that you heard was David tonggi Pa,
Speaker 1: the assemblyman from Fresno, who was on the show yesterday.
Speaker 8: Experts warned, the longer that debt is outstanding, the more
Speaker 8: expensive that debt becomes, especially with hundreds of millions in
Speaker 8: annual interest. We haven't even started paying back the actual
Speaker 8: debt itself. It's all just been interest payment.
Speaker 3: This is the state of California paying the minimum payment
Speaker 3: on a credit card.
Speaker 1: And Gavin News some thinks he's fiscally responsible.
Speaker 2: Didn't we have two years in a row twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty two, where Gavin claimed we had one
Speaker 3: hundred billion dollars surpluses.
Speaker 2: Why not pay off the debt? Then we haven't. No
Speaker 2: one knows where any of that money went.
Speaker 1: It went to one block in the San Fernando Valley
Speaker 1: at all the phony hospice facilities.
Speaker 8: We haven't even started paying back the actual debt itself.
Speaker 6: It's all just been interest payment.
Speaker 12: That's right. You could think of it as you know,
Speaker 12: for the first five years we've made interest only payment.
Speaker 10: So the.
Speaker 2: Not even trying to pay down the principle, are we?
Speaker 8: So the twenty billion dollar debt remains.
Speaker 3: You know, if if this keeps going like this and
Speaker 3: we're not paying this loan back, at some point the
Speaker 3: Feds are going to send someone out here to break
Speaker 3: California's thumbs.
Speaker 1: Well, what they're going to do is blame Trump. This
Speaker 1: is what they're going to do whenever they run into
Speaker 1: trouble with the Feds. If Be Sarah gets indicted, it's
Speaker 1: going to be blamed on Trump. If the federal government
Speaker 1: expects the State of California to pay back the money,
Speaker 1: that's going to be Trump too. This is what they do,
Speaker 1: and you can't let them get away with it. Because
Speaker 1: it never.
Speaker 8: Ends, so the twenty billion dollar debt remains. Newsom has
Speaker 8: allocated about six hundred and sixty two million dollars in
Speaker 8: his twenty twenty six to twenty twenty seven year budget
Speaker 8: to pay next year's interest on the loan. This is
Speaker 8: his response when asked about it.
Speaker 11: It's got to be addressed. It's real, something we had
Speaker 11: to deal with during the Schwartzenegger administration and only comparable example,
Speaker 11: and we were able to pay it back clawback.
Speaker 2: Well, they paid that loan back.
Speaker 1: You notice, by the way, the change in tone in
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom when he's talking about a story that makes
Speaker 1: him look bad because he neglects the duties of his office.
Speaker 1: He acts like he's a child that's being forced to
Speaker 1: eat vegetables.
Speaker 11: It's got to be addressed. It's real, something we had
Speaker 11: to deal with during the Schwartzenegger administration and only comparable example,
Speaker 11: and we were able to pay it back clawback over
Speaker 11: a course of years. So I don't want to leave
Speaker 11: the next governor without those considerations. So there's going to
Speaker 11: be a series of recommendations and proposals.
Speaker 3: I do not understand how we had two years of
Speaker 3: one hundred billion dollar surpluses that we wouldn't pay back
Speaker 3: the loan that we took because he was never interested
Speaker 3: in being governor of California. He was only interested in
Speaker 3: that office to spring board himself to run for president.
Speaker 3: So if he took that money and he could act
Speaker 3: like Santa Claus with all the Democratic interest groups and
Speaker 3: the NGOs and all of those people, they would owe
Speaker 3: him when he would run for president. He didn't care
Speaker 3: about making sure that California was fiscally solvent.
Speaker 8: So why hasn't California been able to pay back the
Speaker 8: loan like it did during Schwarzenegger and the Great Recession?
Speaker 12: The taxes that employers pay into the fund have not
Speaker 12: been enough to pay out unemployment insurance benefits.
Speaker 2: It's an oh boy busted.
Speaker 3: The EDD Department runs at an operational deficit.
Speaker 8: It's an ongoing systemic issue, experts.
Speaker 3: Saying California does have a higher unemployment right than the
Speaker 3: rest of the nation, and we're spending so much on
Speaker 3: unemployment payroll taxes don't even cover it.
Speaker 1: Well, again, if they would get serious about the waste, fraud,
Speaker 1: and abuse, maybe they could find some nickels in the
Speaker 1: couch cushions. But because they're not interested in that. In fact,
Speaker 1: they go after the news organizations or the citizen journalists
Speaker 1: who uncover it. That money is going to continue to
Speaker 1: go to the bad actors, and we're not going to
Speaker 1: have the money we need to pay our actual debts.
Speaker 8: It's an ongoing systemic issue, experts saying California doesn't have
Speaker 8: the money to pay the federal government back, let alone
Speaker 8: maintain its own unemployment insurance reserve.
Speaker 12: The two billion dollars in extra repayment that employers are
Speaker 12: paying is just being used to cover our basics.
Speaker 3: So because California did not pay this back, payroll taxes
Speaker 3: were increased, every single employer has to pay more into
Speaker 3: unemployment and they're still not paying down the debt.
Speaker 1: No, and if anyone deserves a break right now, it's
Speaker 1: California businesses who have one hurdle after another that the
Speaker 1: State of California puts in front of them, one of
Speaker 1: them being our crazy insurance market because the state screwed
Speaker 1: that up too. But instead of trying to find ways
Speaker 1: to give them a break, cut them some slack. What
Speaker 1: does the State of California do. They find ways to
Speaker 1: continue taxing them so that they can continue to allow
Speaker 1: the graft to go on.
Speaker 12: It's just being used right now to cover our normal
Speaker 12: UI costs.
Speaker 8: That two billion dollar extra is what California employers are
Speaker 8: paying for a higher payroll tax a result of the
Speaker 8: outstanding federal debt, about one hundred dollars more poor employee.
Speaker 8: In theory, a portion of that additional money should be
Speaker 8: used to chip away at the debt, but the money
Speaker 8: is staying in state.
Speaker 10: That creates a.
Speaker 12: Huge burden on businesses.
Speaker 4: Frankly on more on smaller businesses.
Speaker 8: We spoke to Senate Budget Committee chair, Democratic State Senator
Speaker 8: John Laird, who said there are ongoing discussions to resolve
Speaker 8: the debt, but declined to provide specifics.
Speaker 3: Of course, why would we have specifics on a major
Speaker 3: financial obligation.
Speaker 1: No, it's because no one up there cares about this stuff.
Speaker 1: They run for office based on how much they hate
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and how they're going to stop Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: and they don't have any interest in performing the duties
Speaker 1: of their office. And it's fine if you have one
Speaker 1: or two of them that are like that, but if
Speaker 1: everyone is like that, no one's minding the store. And
Speaker 1: that's what's going on right now in Sacramento. They should
Speaker 1: be all over this in theory if they were going
Speaker 1: up there and doing their jobs, but they're not.
Speaker 4: An issue that really needs to be addressed, and it's
Speaker 4: issue that's gone on for too long.
Speaker 8: The California Employment Development Department, which oversees the UI benefit,
Speaker 8: but it says our Unemployment Insurance Fund is expected to
Speaker 8: continue running a deficit over for twenty billion dollars in
Speaker 8: the coming years. And at the federal level, Central Valley
Speaker 8: Republican Congressman Vince Wong has introduced a bill that would
Speaker 8: essentially force California to pay back the debt.
Speaker 2: Chris, Laura, Brian, Jenny.
Speaker 9: Huhh, thank you.
Speaker 2: So there you go.
Speaker 3: The latest on the twenty billion dollars California owes the
Speaker 3: federal government that they are paying interest only on kinging
Speaker 3: that over our heads and making it even tougher to
Speaker 3: do anything in this state.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Chris and Westlake Village. Chris, Hello, hi guys.
Speaker 9: Yeah, the art surplus was around September when Governor Newsom
Speaker 9: decided to give everyone three hundred and fifty dollars. And
Speaker 9: I turned to my wife and I said, oh, that's
Speaker 9: a bad idea. But sure enough. The election was two
Speaker 9: months later, so he got himself elected with that money,
Speaker 9: and it's just gone downhill ever since. Now we don't
Speaker 9: elect Spencer Pratt and uh what's his name? Governor? Uh,
Speaker 9: we're done. We're already bankrupt.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 9: If you have Besarah in there, it's just going to
Speaker 9: be the same thing and going over over and over
Speaker 9: and down down, down, and they just borrow borrow money.
Speaker 3: It's the end.
Speaker 9: We have to end it now. That's it, all right, Thank.
Speaker 2: You for the call, sir. We appreciate it. Vote for
Speaker 2: what's his name?
Speaker 1: Eight hundred two two two five two two two is
Speaker 1: telephone number one eight hundred two two two five two
Speaker 1: two two. If you'd like to email the show, you
Speaker 1: can do show at Johnny don't like show at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. That's Johnny, don't like show at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: So during the break, I looked up one of those
Speaker 1: naked dating shows. This one's called Dating Naked. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: hear some of the names of the episodes. Sure, Stripped
Speaker 1: and searching, two faces and suitcases, drag and drop, vamps
Speaker 1: and grams, lap dances and second chances. Oh, here's an
Speaker 1: interesting one. Pub crawls and great balls, strip down and
Speaker 1: buckle up, big fights and bald heads.
Speaker 2: There is a lot of delicious garbage on our streaming
Speaker 2: boxes that seems like a show worth watching.
Speaker 3: We watched the British one and we found it fascinating.
Speaker 3: In the UK, like, the rules are totally different there.
Speaker 3: You can curse on broadcast television, you could be naked
Speaker 3: on broadcast television, but violence is a no no go
Speaker 3: figure