Where Is The Money Going? Lanhee Chen Talks to A&G

don't think it should be surprising. I think it's something he's talked about doing. The two thousand campaign is going to be very interesting because fundamentally, it's going to be, in my mind, a question of do you want, uh, you know, two politicians of the past, right, you have people who are in their seventies, I think late seventies,

or do you want, you know, a fresh vision? And I think both parties are going to have to struggle with that question because you know, it's very hard if if President Biden decides to run for reelection, which who knows if he does or not, that's gonna be sort of very difficult for people in his party. Then to turn around and say, well, we want to go with someone else. It's very hard to turn out an income

in president in that way. Uh. And then on the flip side, Republicans have to ask a question do they want to pass or do they want something new? So it's going to be a fascinating contest. Both sides are going to have to deal with those generational questions as well as questions of whether the politics of the past or the politics of the future, or what they want. All right, we uh, as Jack said, had plenty of time to talk about that in the days and weeks

to come. God help us. Um I happen to come across a couple of articles today, Lani that that dealt with California, But these are universal questions. They have to do with programs, in this case dealing with homelessness in which there are various auditors, like in Oakland or in the state saying, hey, we spent a tremendous amount of money on this program, and the percentage of people that actually helped is very, very low. And this is I think this is a huge topic that doesn't get discussed

nearly enough. How does accountability for money spent work in government? And how should it work. Well, that's a great question right now. I don't know that it does quite honestly. I think the problem you have is that you've got certain people who occasionally decide that they want to demonstrate accountability when an election comes near, and so they go and they you know, maybe run an auditor. They answer a few questions, and they try and make it seem

as though they are being responsive to taxpayers. There doesn't tend to be a unified function in many places. Now California, which is an obviously state where I am and where I'm running for state controller. That is the job of the state controller. The state controller is supposed to be the head audit official for the state, and it's supposed to consolidate and and really give to taxpayers consolidated as well as unified information on how state spending is being

applied to address these various challenges. Homelessness is a great example. You know, we really struggle with that in California. We've seen the problem get a lot worse over the last couple of years, and it's certainly not for a lack of spending. We've spent you know, somewhere between ten and twenty billion dollars over the last couple of years on homelessness,

only to see that problem get worse. Now, occasionally we get a glimpse at how bad this spending is, because the City of Los Angeles will produce a report, for example, that shows that a cost of construction per unit of housing per homeless individual is eight thousand dollars, and everybody says, holy crap, how is that possible? Yeah, that's shocking, right, And then you'll hear the city of Oakland say something,

in the city of San Francisco say something. And really, that responsibility needs to fall to a single official or at least you know, one or two officials in the state to be identifying where the money is going, but more importantly, to be talking about the efficacy or lack there over that spending. So accountability is not just a buzz word. It shouldn't just be a buzzword. People need to live that out on a daily basis. Given how much money in taxes we spend in many of our states,

as well as at the federal level. Well, and it's astounding and horrifying that while business and every responsible family spends a lot of time virtually every day thinking about all right, what are we spending money on and what are we getting for it? The fact that government seems

to be excused completely from asking those questions. I mean, if you could, somehow, as an expert in public policy, whether in California or the United States, get that idea to take hold, I mean, my god, I'd be in favor of a Nobel prize for you in an Olympic gold medal, and maybe former religion around your grammy grammy certainly,

because the fact that that's missing from public conversation is shocking. Yeah, and uh, it is thrown around as a buzzword, and I think there's never really any activity taken to move the ball forward in terms of how do we actually advance that kind of accountability. I mean, you know, many states have this this idea of you know, you can go online and you can see the states checkbook, for example.

I was talking to a couple of state auditors the other day about the best practices that they apply in their states, and they say, listen, you know, we want to be as transparent as possible. Obviously, not all states do this. California doesn't do this. Um, you can't go online and see where you're mo is being spent, and that would be like, you know, if the bank just decided to wake up one day to bank wherever you bank, and they said, you know, we're not We're not going

to show you your transactions. You just have to trust that that it's being spent in the way you say it's being spent. That's essentially what these states like California are asking us to do. And I think at some point people have it, you know, they just that taxpayers say enough is enough, and they say, you know, we want accountability. I hope that that enough is enough comes Tuesday when we have our election. But I also know

that this is a long term project. This is a long term effort to try and bring accountability and responsibility and fiscal thoughtfulness to what we're doing. Because we cannot keep throwing good money after bad and not solving problems. We just can't keep doing it. How do how do you break out of the conundrum of if a government program gets started and doesn't work, the answer always seems to be to throw more money at it, which doesn't

happen in the private world obviously. Yeah, and it's this is always this is something that I find managing is when I hear, for example, the governor Gavin Newsom talk about issues in California and he says, well, we're doing great, We're spending more money, and it's like, no, no, no no, no, you don't understand. The measure of success is not whether you spend more money. The measure of successes are you

solving the problem? If you think about this, you know, I've met with a bunch of small business owners over the last several months and they all say the same thing, which is, if we're going to invest a certain amount of money in something, whether it's new, a new piece of equipment, or a new employee or whatever it is, we're gonna want to make sure we're investing in them and seeing what our return on investment is training, new equipment, etcetera.

And and everybody does this, right, It's just a basic concept, but in government, nobody ever stops to say, hey, maybe we should be looking at what our return on invested capital has been. Does it make sense for us to keep spending on programs that are hugely inefficient and effective that don't solve the problem. I think we would all agree that if you had a program that was actually working, sure spend money on it. Let's make sure we're doubling

down on things that work. But nobody ever stops and says, hey, is this working or not? Right? And so I just want to bring a different mindset, and I think there are others around the country who want us as well. Hey, let's just bring a mindset to the job of is this working or not? And if it's working, great, If it's not, knock at all? Oh amen to that. Lanai Chen with the Hoover Institution, Stanford University running for a state controller in California. Hey, are you willing to say, Alani?

He uh, what states you think do well on these things? Good transparency, good accountability? Yeah? You know several years ago the state of Idaho. Excuse yeah, Idaho is one of them. Was a mentioned Ohio first, but both Ohio and Idaho are good examples. In Ohio many years ago, guy named Josh Mandel, the former state treasurer who went on to

run for a couple of different offices. When he was treasurer, he put in place a lot of accountability practices as well as transparency portals and transparency kind of tools that have been very, very helpful in maintaining accountability in that state. Idaho is a much smaller state obviously, but they have a similar mindset and have really applied technology well. In fact, I talked to a technology for it or a few days ago who is working with the state of Idaho

and a few other states around the country. Smaller states to be sure, but states around the country to bring to bear kind of these best transparency practices. For example, once a government expenditure happens, it gets posted within seventy

two hours. Great idea, Right, it's our money, and once you spend it, let us know within seventy two hours, and then that prevents the kinds of shenanigans that you get where billions and billions of dollars go out the door, like we had in California and unfortunately many other states nationally a hundred and sixteen billion dollars in unemployment insurance fraud during COVID, thirty billion of it in California. That wouldn't have happened if we had a seventy two rule.

People would have seen, Hey, why is Scott Peterson getting a check? Why is Diane Feinstein getting a check? This is kind of weird, Like these are the sorts of things basic. This is like, I'm not this is not rocket science, right, this is not doesn't require a PhD in molecular physics to figure out how to do this

very basic. Let's just get it done. And the reason why these guys don't with the reason why these guys and gals like to keep people in the dark is because they thrive off of being the ones to hold the information so that they can say no, no, no, no, we need to spend more money because I have the information and you don't. And you know that's just not the way that should work. Are you buying a powerball ticket?

I actually have bought a couple of powerball tickets over the last couple of months, but to no one's surprised, I have not been successful. Okay, so you can do math. So that's good for your position because it's unlikely that you know, um, uh and uh. You're the only Republican in memory that all of these major liberal newspapers have endorsed. So clearly you should run for governor. Would you like to announce that now or are you gonna wait until

you're done being controller? Believe me, Believe me, I am. I am so focused on trying to get this over the finish line on the day that I can't even I can't even think about what I'm gonna have for breakfast. But you're not ruling it out. We're just I'm doing the whole No no, no, no no. Clearly, clearly he's angling for the presidency, Jackis. I'll tell you something that's right. I'm actually running to be global monarch. Beautiful name high

Lanie Lannie Chen Kennedy for California State Controller. It's always stimulating. Thanks for the chat. Hey, thanks you guys. You got it. So as you heard, he didn't say no um Art Strong and Getty