Speaker 1: What a pleasure it is to talk to ln Hey Chenny.
Speaker 1: He's a candidate for California State Controller. Fellow with the
Speaker 1: Hoover Institution, Director of Domestic Policy Studies at Stanford University.
Speaker 1: Is a day job. Lon. He welcome, How are you happy? Friday?
Speaker 1: Gonna be with you both. Yeah, we don't want to
Speaker 1: spend our valuable time with you on just this topic, obviously,
Speaker 1: and there'll be plenty of time to discuss it. But
Speaker 1: first thoughts. When you hear that Trump is running, I
Speaker 1: don't think it should be surprising. I think it's something
Speaker 1: he's talked about doing. The two thousand campaign is going
Speaker 1: to be very interesting because fundamentally, it's going to be,
Speaker 1: in my mind, a question of do you want, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, two politicians of the past, right, you have
Speaker 1: people who are in their seventies, I think late seventies,
Speaker 1: or do you want, you know, a fresh vision? And
Speaker 1: I think both parties are going to have to struggle
Speaker 1: with that question because you know, it's very hard if
Speaker 1: if President Biden decides to run for reelection, which who
Speaker 1: knows if he does or not, that's gonna be sort
Speaker 1: of very difficult for people in his party. Then to
Speaker 1: turn around and say, well, we want to go with
Speaker 1: someone else. It's very hard to turn out an income
Speaker 1: in president in that way. Uh. And then on the
Speaker 1: flip side, Republicans have to ask a question do they
Speaker 1: want to pass or do they want something new? So
Speaker 1: it's going to be a fascinating contest. Both sides are
Speaker 1: going to have to deal with those generational questions as
Speaker 1: well as questions of whether the politics of the past
Speaker 1: or the politics of the future, or what they want.
Speaker 1: All right, we uh, as Jack said, had plenty of
Speaker 1: time to talk about that in the days and weeks
Speaker 1: to come. God help us. Um I happen to come
Speaker 1: across a couple of articles today, Lani that that dealt
Speaker 1: with California, But these are universal questions. They have to
Speaker 1: do with programs, in this case dealing with homelessness in
Speaker 1: which there are various auditors, like in Oakland or in
Speaker 1: the state saying, hey, we spent a tremendous amount of
Speaker 1: money on this program, and the percentage of people that
Speaker 1: actually helped is very, very low. And this is I
Speaker 1: think this is a huge topic that doesn't get discussed
Speaker 1: nearly enough. How does accountability for money spent work in government?
Speaker 1: And how should it work. Well, that's a great question
Speaker 1: right now. I don't know that it does quite honestly.
Speaker 1: I think the problem you have is that you've got
Speaker 1: certain people who occasionally decide that they want to demonstrate
Speaker 1: accountability when an election comes near, and so they go
Speaker 1: and they you know, maybe run an auditor. They answer
Speaker 1: a few questions, and they try and make it seem
Speaker 1: as though they are being responsive to taxpayers. There doesn't
Speaker 1: tend to be a unified function in many places. Now California,
Speaker 1: which is an obviously state where I am and where
Speaker 1: I'm running for state controller. That is the job of
Speaker 1: the state controller. The state controller is supposed to be
Speaker 1: the head audit official for the state, and it's supposed
Speaker 1: to consolidate and and really give to taxpayers consolidated as
Speaker 1: well as unified information on how state spending is being
Speaker 1: applied to address these various challenges. Homelessness is a great example.
Speaker 1: You know, we really struggle with that in California. We've
Speaker 1: seen the problem get a lot worse over the last
Speaker 1: couple of years, and it's certainly not for a lack
Speaker 1: of spending. We've spent you know, somewhere between ten and
Speaker 1: twenty billion dollars over the last couple of years on homelessness,
Speaker 1: only to see that problem get worse. Now, occasionally we
Speaker 1: get a glimpse at how bad this spending is, because
Speaker 1: the City of Los Angeles will produce a report, for example,
Speaker 1: that shows that a cost of construction per unit of
Speaker 1: housing per homeless individual is eight thousand dollars, and everybody says,
Speaker 1: holy crap, how is that possible? Yeah, that's shocking, right,
Speaker 1: And then you'll hear the city of Oakland say something,
Speaker 1: in the city of San Francisco say something. And really,
Speaker 1: that responsibility needs to fall to a single official or
Speaker 1: at least you know, one or two officials in the
Speaker 1: state to be identifying where the money is going, but
Speaker 1: more importantly, to be talking about the efficacy or lack
Speaker 1: there over that spending. So accountability is not just a
Speaker 1: buzz word. It shouldn't just be a buzzword. People need
Speaker 1: to live that out on a daily basis. Given how
Speaker 1: much money in taxes we spend in many of our states,
Speaker 1: as well as at the federal level. Well, and it's
Speaker 1: astounding and horrifying that while business and every responsible family
Speaker 1: spends a lot of time virtually every day thinking about
Speaker 1: all right, what are we spending money on and what
Speaker 1: are we getting for it? The fact that government seems
Speaker 1: to be excused completely from asking those questions. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you could, somehow, as an expert in public policy,
Speaker 1: whether in California or the United States, get that idea
Speaker 1: to take hold, I mean, my god, I'd be in
Speaker 1: favor of a Nobel prize for you in an Olympic
Speaker 1: gold medal, and maybe former religion around your grammy grammy certainly,
Speaker 1: because the fact that that's missing from public conversation is shocking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, it is thrown around as a buzzword, and
Speaker 1: I think there's never really any activity taken to move
Speaker 1: the ball forward in terms of how do we actually
Speaker 1: advance that kind of accountability. I mean, you know, many
Speaker 1: states have this this idea of you know, you can
Speaker 1: go online and you can see the states checkbook, for example.
Speaker 1: I was talking to a couple of state auditors the
Speaker 1: other day about the best practices that they apply in
Speaker 1: their states, and they say, listen, you know, we want
Speaker 1: to be as transparent as possible. Obviously, not all states
Speaker 1: do this. California doesn't do this. Um, you can't go
Speaker 1: online and see where you're mo is being spent, and
Speaker 1: that would be like, you know, if the bank just
Speaker 1: decided to wake up one day to bank wherever you bank,
Speaker 1: and they said, you know, we're not We're not going
Speaker 1: to show you your transactions. You just have to trust
Speaker 1: that that it's being spent in the way you say
Speaker 1: it's being spent. That's essentially what these states like California
Speaker 1: are asking us to do. And I think at some
Speaker 1: point people have it, you know, they just that taxpayers
Speaker 1: say enough is enough, and they say, you know, we
Speaker 1: want accountability. I hope that that enough is enough comes
Speaker 1: Tuesday when we have our election. But I also know
Speaker 1: that this is a long term project. This is a
Speaker 1: long term effort to try and bring accountability and responsibility
Speaker 1: and fiscal thoughtfulness to what we're doing. Because we cannot
Speaker 1: keep throwing good money after bad and not solving problems.
Speaker 1: We just can't keep doing it. How do how do
Speaker 1: you break out of the conundrum of if a government
Speaker 1: program gets started and doesn't work, the answer always seems
Speaker 1: to be to throw more money at it, which doesn't
Speaker 1: happen in the private world obviously. Yeah, and it's this
Speaker 1: is always this is something that I find managing is
Speaker 1: when I hear, for example, the governor Gavin Newsom talk
Speaker 1: about issues in California and he says, well, we're doing great,
Speaker 1: We're spending more money, and it's like, no, no, no no, no,
Speaker 1: you don't understand. The measure of success is not whether
Speaker 1: you spend more money. The measure of successes are you
Speaker 1: solving the problem? If you think about this, you know,
Speaker 1: I've met with a bunch of small business owners over
Speaker 1: the last several months and they all say the same thing,
Speaker 1: which is, if we're going to invest a certain amount
Speaker 1: of money in something, whether it's new, a new piece
Speaker 1: of equipment, or a new employee or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: we're gonna want to make sure we're investing in them
Speaker 1: and seeing what our return on investment is training, new equipment, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And and everybody does this, right, It's just a basic concept,
Speaker 1: but in government, nobody ever stops to say, hey, maybe
Speaker 1: we should be looking at what our return on invested
Speaker 1: capital has been. Does it make sense for us to
Speaker 1: keep spending on programs that are hugely inefficient and effective
Speaker 1: that don't solve the problem. I think we would all
Speaker 1: agree that if you had a program that was actually working,
Speaker 1: sure spend money on it. Let's make sure we're doubling
Speaker 1: down on things that work. But nobody ever stops and says, hey,
Speaker 1: is this working or not? Right? And so I just
Speaker 1: want to bring a different mindset, and I think there
Speaker 1: are others around the country who want us as well. Hey,
Speaker 1: let's just bring a mindset to the job of is
Speaker 1: this working or not? And if it's working, great, If
Speaker 1: it's not, knock at all? Oh amen to that. Lanai
Speaker 1: Chen with the Hoover Institution, Stanford University running for a
Speaker 1: state controller in California. Hey, are you willing to say, Alani?
Speaker 1: He uh, what states you think do well on these things?
Speaker 1: Good transparency, good accountability? Yeah? You know several years ago
Speaker 1: the state of Idaho. Excuse yeah, Idaho is one of them.
Speaker 1: Was a mentioned Ohio first, but both Ohio and Idaho
Speaker 1: are good examples. In Ohio many years ago, guy named
Speaker 1: Josh Mandel, the former state treasurer who went on to
Speaker 1: run for a couple of different offices. When he was treasurer,
Speaker 1: he put in place a lot of accountability practices as
Speaker 1: well as transparency portals and transparency kind of tools that
Speaker 1: have been very, very helpful in maintaining accountability in that state.
Speaker 1: Idaho is a much smaller state obviously, but they have
Speaker 1: a similar mindset and have really applied technology well. In fact,
Speaker 1: I talked to a technology for it or a few
Speaker 1: days ago who is working with the state of Idaho
Speaker 1: and a few other states around the country. Smaller states
Speaker 1: to be sure, but states around the country to bring
Speaker 1: to bear kind of these best transparency practices. For example,
Speaker 1: once a government expenditure happens, it gets posted within seventy
Speaker 1: two hours. Great idea, Right, it's our money, and once
Speaker 1: you spend it, let us know within seventy two hours,
Speaker 1: and then that prevents the kinds of shenanigans that you
Speaker 1: get where billions and billions of dollars go out the door,
Speaker 1: like we had in California and unfortunately many other states
Speaker 1: nationally a hundred and sixteen billion dollars in unemployment insurance
Speaker 1: fraud during COVID, thirty billion of it in California. That
Speaker 1: wouldn't have happened if we had a seventy two rule.
Speaker 1: People would have seen, Hey, why is Scott Peterson getting
Speaker 1: a check? Why is Diane Feinstein getting a check? This
Speaker 1: is kind of weird, Like these are the sorts of
Speaker 1: things basic. This is like, I'm not this is not
Speaker 1: rocket science, right, this is not doesn't require a PhD
Speaker 1: in molecular physics to figure out how to do this
Speaker 1: very basic. Let's just get it done. And the reason
Speaker 1: why these guys don't with the reason why these guys
Speaker 1: and gals like to keep people in the dark is
Speaker 1: because they thrive off of being the ones to hold
Speaker 1: the information so that they can say no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we need to spend more money because I have the
Speaker 1: information and you don't. And you know that's just not
Speaker 1: the way that should work. Are you buying a powerball ticket?
Speaker 1: I actually have bought a couple of powerball tickets over
Speaker 1: the last couple of months, but to no one's surprised,
Speaker 1: I have not been successful. Okay, so you can do math.
Speaker 1: So that's good for your position because it's unlikely that
Speaker 1: you know, um, uh and uh. You're the only Republican
Speaker 1: in memory that all of these major liberal newspapers have endorsed.
Speaker 1: So clearly you should run for governor. Would you like
Speaker 1: to announce that now or are you gonna wait until
Speaker 1: you're done being controller? Believe me, Believe me, I am.
Speaker 1: I am so focused on trying to get this over
Speaker 1: the finish line on the day that I can't even
Speaker 1: I can't even think about what I'm gonna have for breakfast.
Speaker 1: But you're not ruling it out. We're just I'm doing
Speaker 1: the whole No no, no, no no. Clearly, clearly he's
Speaker 1: angling for the presidency, Jackis. I'll tell you something that's right.
Speaker 1: I'm actually running to be global monarch. Beautiful name high
Speaker 1: Lanie Lannie Chen Kennedy for California State Controller. It's always stimulating.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the chat. Hey, thanks you guys. You got it.
Speaker 1: So as you heard, he didn't say no um Art
Speaker 1: Strong and Getty