Nobody Represents The Taxpayer! Lanhee Chen Talks to A&G

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 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? 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. 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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

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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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