One-on-one with Don Huffines

Hatred Kest listeners. This week's episode is a recording of an interview I did in our offices with Don Haffins, the Republican nominee for control. Hope you enjoy it, honorable Don Halffans, thank you for being here. Congratulations on your primary victory.

Oh, thank you, Thank you, Matthew. I appreciate it. It's good to be here. First, let me just talk about that victory. I mean, this was really a huge win, really unpresced in it. This was not whimsical. I won by a huge majority in a very competitive primary for the Republican nominee to be the Republican nominee, and I got out spent.

I worked on the campaign.

For over a year, but it was really a year or two in the making because I was listening to the Republican voters and I've worked with them in the grassroots and the base for years, and they our message resonated.

Had a great team.

I won every county in Texas but ten I won DFW and the Houston metro areas about sixty three percent combined. So I bringing that up because I really think it sends a great message. I mean, my victory was margin was fifty seven and a half percent over some great candidates. And I think it just echoes the fact that Texans and Republicans in general really won't to find out where their money's going, how it's being spent, is it being spent properly or not.

So I just wanted to bring that up to you.

Tell me a little bit. I mean, you have, you know, history in Texas politics. You've been in the state Senate, you ran for governor in twenty twenty two. What was it about the Comptroller's office? Why that office?

Why? Now?

Well, I appreciate that question.

I'm going to roll back just a minute and tell you that about the Texas trip and why I'm here. Okay, if you don't mind. I went to your trip, as you know a couple of times. I was on a panel a decade ago. And and you know, the last time I was there, the reception wasn't the greatest for conservatives, right, I got the boot birds are out, But I knew Evan Smith very well. And and as actually I'm going to his to the LBJ School after this event to

And because I love media, I mean I love.

Papers and and he said, you know, he got back to me, we just don't do opinion pieces. And I said, well, hm, you need a conservative voice. But you the paper is an opinion piece. It's all to the left.

So it really is.

So I'm saying I'm here today to tell you the conservative what conservatives think, how we operate, or what we think, what we see the future of the state of Texas, because we have the answers to and the solutions to the issues that affect Texas.

I just wanted to get that out.

Sure, I appreciate that, and you know, I agree we want to have conservative voices and you know, on our stage and on our in our stories as well. So very much appreciate you being here and you know, sharing your perspective on this this important office. Let's talk a little bit about the Comptroller's office. Uh, you know, a statewide office. Some people call it the you know, the state's accountant, right has a lot of influence on you know, how much money is available to the legislature and how

Of course I do. I've got a lot of priorities, Matthew. But let me just tell you how important this office is. Okay, Texas is the basically the eighth largest economy in the world if we have our own gd The comptroller's position is constitutional. Of course, it's elected by the voter statewide,

It's not legislative.

Of course, let's talk about some of those things.

I in my job spend a lot of time driving around Texas, which means, you know, during the primary season, saw a lot of Don Heffine's billboards out there political ads for the race. One of the things that I would see on those billboards was, you know, doge Texas right, this was this was something you were advocating for. Tell me a little bit about what that means, what that looks like to you.

Of course I appreciate that question because that was the message that resonated. That's why I won a boy such a landslide, and what I just said. But Doje's Department of Government and Efficiency. It's more of a urb now than than any of they write.

It's a verb.

Everybody knows what it is, but it's about it's about having eyes own or spending primarily. And I'm a business guy and I have a lot of successful businesses, And I know that a dollar we don't spend is a dollar we earned.

And it's really simple as that.

And and so can we make government more efficient?

That's really the question.

Are we getting a good value for every dollar we're spending? Can we consolidate different functions, either in the Comptroller's office or in other state agencies?

What is? And just ask simple.

Questions like I did when I found that corrupt organization in Dallas County government organization?

Why do you exist? What's your purpose?

Are you really accomplishing what the legislature directed you to accomplish? Who's your customer and it's the taxpayers. So doging is about to me understanding that the money belongs to the people. It belongs to you and me. Government doesn't create any money, and it takes the money by force. The least we could do is make sure that it's being spent correctly. And to make sure that we could consolidate is making sure we've got skill in our procurement division.

Are we getting the best dollar spent? Is anyone else?

If we're buying a product our service, are we absolutely getting the lowest dollar? Is anybody else getting it cheaper? From that company than the state of taxes.

I hope not.

That's what many things we're going to be digging into. So give you a quick sample of that.

Okay, excellent. I want to read just a brief excerpt from your website because it focuses on something specific that I want to ask about. Sure, on your issues page, you say he you will shift the focus of the Comptroller's office away from auditing businesses and toward aggressively auditing government spending, finding savings, and returning budget surpluses to taxpayers

Are you.

Is what you envisioned essentially shifting those people from doing that work on? How does that look in general? Will they no longer be auditing you know, businesses and and really be focusing on on agencies. What's the what's the breakdown of how that works?

Well?

Yes, not completely, not completely right now, it's the FTEs are about six hundred auditors.

That's not full. Uh they're having difficulty hiring auditors. Uh. But say we get it up to six hundred, that's my goal or more.

I think we'll be doing a lot of shifting around and the ORG chart's going to look a lot different when I'm there. But yes, absolutely, I'm going to put a lot of those auditors auditing government. And that's what I promised the people when I ran for office, and that's what I'm gonna do. And look, we've got a We've got different issues that affect the Comptroller's office and whether it's tax protest, I mean when people are having uh TEX compliance issues, businesses, individuals, the process.

Takes too long to resolve those.

We have administrative law judges and they take way too long to get those hearings. But people still businesses and individuals and whoever owes the money is still going to be paying it. But like I said earlier, if we can save a dollar, we earned a dollar. And what I'm saying is that I can use the bully pulpit to focus on property tax relief. I think it's the number one issue for the legislature this year. I don't

Well, well, let's talk about this, you talk about the bully pulpit. I mean, one of the things I wanted to kind of drill into is how much do you feel in your office you will have the opportunity to, you know, implement change or or require change, or how much of it is bringing to light the issues that you see and then you know, going to the legislature or whoever else to try to you know, put those changes into law.

Well, a lot of it's both.

You know, we'll have a list of legislative I priorities for the Comptollurer's office and for which of course reflect for the state of Texas, and we give that to the legislature and we hope they act on all that and I'll be communicating with them. And one thing I'm going to do is comptrollers make sure I have a real open door policy to the members. When I was in the Texas Senate, it it didn't seem to work that way, and a lot of a lot of members

That we don't have fraud involved, don't.

It's a nonpartisan issue, right if you've got fraud, Most people in America, and in Texas particularly, and I'm always Texas first, we want people to help be held accountable. The Texans are very thirsty for that. They want to know that if people are taking the money and they're not supposed to be that they're going to be accountable. They're going to go to jail. And that's what I'm going to focus on. Can I just tell you a quick,

Uh.

There was a line on my property tax bill and it said Dallas equal fine. And you know what, what worlds that I'm not? I don't even know. Then I dug into it and it said Dallas County schools. I said, what the world's that? I'm not even in their district. I represented the north half of Dallas County. No one told me to dig into this group. Nobody formed a committee, nobody formed a study group. It was just old Don digging into it. And I went and asked him a

Uh.

But what I bring that up because what that group was spending in one year the state of tech I mean in one year, Yeah, the State of Texas spends.

In nine hours. So uh.

And it was corrupt and it was an elected agency. I'm not saying we got a lot of that, but I'm telling you if you don't look, you're not going to find it.

And I was doging before you knew the word.

So do you see within the powers of that office the ability in any way to you know, essentially take things into your own hands, you know, like with withhold money, or or you know, require changes in how agencies are run, or or is that something that more is necessary to go through other avenues of government.

Well, I appreciate that question. Yes, to answer your question, I have to. I'm the chief financial officer. Wouldn't if if you're running to I'm a businessman, right, And and my chief financial officer says, I tell I've got a budget for something, and I give them the budget and I come back and they spend all the budget and I'll say, well, okay, let's ask questions about that. Where did the money go? What did you really spend it on? And they can't answer that, and they can't answer, well,

I don't know.

Let's dig into it. I would be an accomplice to a possible crime. If all those people are stealing money. I don't think they are.

Don't know.

But if I don't, look, do you think I should take Texas taxpayer money and keep funding it. Let me just give you an example. Okay, I traveled all over the state of Texas for this election, and I've traveled all over the state for you year. And that's why I won by such a landslide and we got outspent.

Did I tell you that? Did I tell you that already?

Okay, we did, and it was millions of dollars. But people when I get out of the car, people would hand me a folder a file. Every week I get more information in either delivered to my office in the mail or via email. Folders. They could be six inches thick, one inches thick. That could be a letter of the corruption that's in their county, in their school district, in their appraisal district, and their county commissioners. These are local

Don't know, I don't have. I'm not in the position.

I haven't had time to dig into that and then say people say, hi, fis what are you going to how you going to do? First thing I'm going to do is look at that. I mean, there is a lot of corruption in Texas. Unfortunately we're not immune to that. The scale that we deal with is massive. There's a lot of money, and so yes, I'll be looking at a lot of things.

Excellent.

You talked a little bit about reorganizing the office. Tell me what's your vision there. Do you feel like the level of the workforce is appropriate. Do you feel like there are people who need to be, you know, swapped out for other people or positions.

I don't know that for sure, because I'm not there right We'll be interviewing a lot of folks.

Obviously, when I.

Get there, there's three thousand people. We'll be making decisions on all that. But I'm a business guy. I don't buy a business. I'm not buying this business. As you probably know, I never I'm not taking a salary. I'm not looking for a new job to make money. And when I was in the Senate, I'm the only elected office holder at the time in Texas history they ever took a penny from the State of Texas no pay, pension, health care, And I'm going to do the same as controller.

AI is going to have a lot to do with that.

We all know that tide a wave is coming, there's no doubt about it. But let's just make sure that we were as efficient as possible. To answer your question, yes, I'll be analyzing and reorgan and reorganizing with an org chart.

This is probably different, but that takes a while to get your arms around.

Right, absolutely, Okay, let's let's talk about the relationship with with other offices. This is that the controller has an interesting history here dating back to when John Sharp was Controller. He instituted these government efficiency reviews. At the time, they were very popular, and in fact, I was reading yesterday about how President Clinton actually pulled John Sharp up and use him as an example of how he wanted to do similar efficiency reviews at the national level. He was

Now, Well, thank you for asking that question. A lot of people are very curious about that since we did run against him. Of course, he called me day after the election and he had his candidate obviously, and and congratulated me. We had a twenty five minute discussion, and then a couple of weeks ago he invited Mary Catherine, my wife, and I to the Governor's mansion and we had a great, great meal together. The three hour meal together is very generous him and Cecilia.

To do that. And we're aligned.

We're aligned on many issues that affect Texas, and we're going to work together.

It's really critical that we do. I'm going to work with the governor.

I'm going to work with the Speaker of the House, and of course the lieutenant governor. We all have to work together to make sure we saw excuse me, Texas problems and deliver a great conservative budget because the money belongs to us, the people. So we're I'm good with the governor and I'm good with everybody. I know a lot of people in the legislature, and you know this is Republican legislature, so we're all united, and we're going to be united in the fall too.

How much would you see it as you job?

I mean, not just the governor, but the lieutenant governor and the legislature others to serve as sort of a watchdog for.

For their actions. And they're they're spending.

Well, that's a good question.

I'll be I'll say this, I am, excuse me, the taxpayer watchdog and excuse me just a second.

Sure, and I'm gonna keep that reputation. I'm gonna be the taxpayer watchdog.

So if they're you know, if we're spending the money where we don't need to spend it, they're gonna hear about it. But we're gonna work together constantly. I'm not here to embarrass anybody. I'm not here to get uh too much in the wii's with the legislative priorities. But I do have a bully pulpit and people expect me to use it.

One of the biggest roles of the controller is, of course, they any biennial revenue estimate, which is released the day before the legislative session starts and sets basically how much money the legislature can spend. The comptroller has to certify the budget once it is written, and can you know, amend the estimates during the legislative session. How do you feel about how that process has gone in recent years.

Well, Being that I haven't done it before, it's hard to me. I really am not appropriate for me to answer that question. I know that the Speaker and the governor and the tenant governor and the comptroller have to get together and we got agree on stuff that starts a September. So this is a very interesting, unique process right now, whether there's this transition or there's not a transition of what's going to happen. But I'm open for

Okay, very good.

I mean one of the you know, sort of awkward situations around this, right of course, you have a general election in November. If you were to win that, you would be inaugurated in late January. The bre comes out before then. Do you feel like you should be involved in that process at all leading up to them, or do you feel like you should kind of reevaluate it if you were to come into office afterward when that time happens.

Absolutely I should be involved or I'm going to have to reevaluate it. I mean, I've got to sortify a budget that I really wasn't involved in. That's not the best approach.

Okay, great?

Another you know new role of the Controller's office is of course administering the voucher program. You have been a major supporter of this. You were advocating for this in the legislature when you were in it, back when it felt unrealistic for it to pass right. There was you know a lot of opposition in the House at that time. Now it is here, you have witnessed its role out with the Countroller's office. How do you feel like that's going right now?

Well, it's going it's going well.

I think the significant thing about it is the number of people of families that have applied. I mean two hundred and seventy four thousand families, and with minimal marketing, I should say I would venture to guess that if you went out there to the government school system today and ask anybody if they knew about it, you know, nine and a half out of ten people would say no, they didn't know about it.

And uh so.

It just shows how thirsty Texans are for great education or some change something different, whether they're disabled or whatever it is. And and look, I am being a huge advocate of it because I want our government school systems to be the best they can possibly be. I'm also a free market man, and I believe in the free in the free market and capitalism and what saved the world, and it's going to save our government schools. We need

This is the best solution.

To make the government school is the best they can be, and they're going to compete. They'll learn how to do it, There's no question they'll learn why people aren't leaving.

But the customer is right.

The customer is the kid and the parent in that chair, and if they are not getting served, they need an option as simple as that, and so I'm a champion of it, and I think it's gonna go. It's going to go good, and I think we see the demand right now, and I think it's going to do nothing but substantially increase.

Do you envision advocating for more money for that program in the future.

Well, actually, the legislation that was passed UH requires the controller the way I read it, UH to add to the budget everyone on the wait list.

Now the legislature don't have to fund.

It, but they all but I am supposed to present them a budget with everybody on the.

White list in the budget. Okay, very good, Yes, I think it will be added.

Answer question, you think you think the legislature will, Well, yes.

I think the political pressure is there.

They see it, everyone sees it, and UH the members see it. And and like I said, that was minimal marketing.

The most recent legislative sessions have been marked by UH, you know, pretty significant surpluses right growth in UH sales tax revenue, oil and gas revenue, federal COVID funds, a lot of things have created what up until a few years ago, we're sort of unprecedented surpluses for the for the legislature to spend feels like maybe this upcoming session might be a little different. Do you anticipate there being less money to spend this time around?

Well, of course I'm not there.

I can't give you the details on all that, but no, we're still going to have a surplus. And I like to look at it as I think we've overcharged the customer and we need to give that a lot of that surplus back to Texans. And I'm promoting, of course, like I have on the campaign trail, I'm promoting to give it back and talk excuse me, property tax relief. However the legislature wants to do it. I'm in favor of it, and I know that's the number one issue.

What is your what would your response be if you feel like the legislature did not sufficiently fund property tax cuts.

Well, let's talk a minute about wealth creation. How can Texans? How can Texas government? What's the role of government? You know, really, what what do we do? We forcibly take money from people, but we've got to deliver a good service to people. The taxpayer. That's our customers. I keep saying, and.

Property tax is.

Something that that that can generate wealth if we cut it, it puts more money in people's pocket. And okay, let's just look at if we I'm for whatever the legislature comes up with. Any property tax relief is beneficial. And but how can we really generate wealth is across the board, get you know, start phasing out the M and O tax. But it has to be definitive. It has to be on a glide path to zero. People have to know that. We have to be committed. It has to be constitutional.

It depends.

But we use our surpluses and we buy down that rate, and it benefits everyone that pays the rate equally, including businesses which we basically sign the paychecks don't have.

Any of that.

I will point out that my research shows that if you that real quick, I don't want to get too much in the weeds. But businesses and big and commercial property represent over three dollars worth of that that all that is sold on a net operating income, and property tax is the largest expense of any business because they're in strip centers or triple net leases.

Well, they got to pay it.

Well, a business is sold on a multiple of its net earnings. Commercial real estate, that building, everything is sold on a multiple of its net operating income. And if you can take that down, every dollar you save those businesses is a multiple of how much it's worth. It could be a twenty multiple, ten multiple, or twenty five multiple. And that our research shows it will create tens of billions of net worth for Texans. If we can do away with that and guess what they do with that money?

All right, let's talk about I mentioned your billboards earlier. Another message on the billboards was fighting DEI right, what is what do you envision the controller's role being in this topic?

This issue?

And and and and also how do you how do you define de A?

Well, thank you for that question.

Uh, if the legislature and the governor have spoken, I've got an obligation to do to enforce it if I can, right, I'm not going to And if I see there's a government agency or my agency that is involved in DEI and the governor says we're not going to have it, the legislature says we're not going to have it, I'm not going to have it.

As simple as that, We're not going to do that.

And if a and if an agency, I'm not sure or should they get money to break the law, you can ask you, well, okay, then i don't know if that's a good idea, and it's not a good idea, and.

I'm not going to let them do that, as simple as that.

I'm not going to let a university or a state agent, seere my agency break the law over the wheels of the state's statue so.

And might not get their money.

Simple as that, I'm going to at least try to enforce the law.

I mean, what would cross the threshold to you for.

Being a situation where you would feel like you would need them to not, as you say, get their money, Like what is what is that?

I mean?

DEI can be such a sort of amorphous topic depending on how you talk about it, Like what is that? What would that actually look like?

In your minth I have to look at the legislation and really study it and make sure that we're following the law. And if it's ambiguous, we have a little bit of a leeway to interpret it. I don't like ambiguous laws. I like everything being very definitive. I want I don't want the comptroller have to interpret a lot of things. I don't want this interpreting tax law. I want it to be clear. So a lot of things that aren't true I mean aren't clear at the office.

I mean.

One of the things I've been sort of trying to I guess drill into understand from you is like how willing are you to use the levers at your disposal to you know, restrict cash to what you may envision or see as bad actors, either if it's around DEI, whether it's around efficiency or anything else like that, Like what do you see how much, for lack of a better term, wiggle room do you think you have to step in when you feel like you see something wrong

Well, I appreciate the question. At you.

Again, I've got to produce your responsibility to the tax by your period and they expect me to do to step in, whether I'm stepping in on the legislature with the legislature to help and in communicating what I'm seeing, what we're experiencing across the state or in this agency or that agency, can we get some legislation done to fix it? And if that's not the case, I'll have to evaluate everything when I see it and to understand the significance of it, the severity of it, or are

Let's talk about the general election a little bit. How do you view the climate out there right now? Political climate? It's a midterm election. Oftentimes the president's party can struggle there. We are, of course though in Texas, right what do you see both for yourself and other Republicans you know, coming down in November.

We're going to smoke it. It's not even going to be closed, it's really we're going to smoke. Okay, Hey, look this is Texas. This is Texas. Our culture is unique. We're special. Do we want to be like all the other states? No, our heritage is unique and our party represents that. And I asked what we want A limited government. That's a conservative principle. We want to take as little money from the taxpayer as possible to deliver the very

Another thing that I saw on your on your website, we talked about de I, we talked about dodging the government. You talked at at times about UH, you know, preventing government funds from UH landing in the hands of radical Islamists.

Uh, what do you mean by that? When when when you talk about that as a priority.

About UH, tell me again real quick.

So I believe on your site, you know, you talk about fighting DEI and also preventing government funds from UH.

Going to radical Yeah.

Sure, of course, Well this is about terrorism, That's really what it's about. The Governor's declared that Muslim Brotherhood and Care are terrorist organizations and and of course we're not going to allow government money, taxpayer money to go to any organization that's affiliated with them. I mean, we are at war right now with salam Is with his Islamic nations. So it's it's even more germane now than it was a few months ago.

There there's been some discussion around the voucher program about you know, UH schools associated with the Muslim faith being denied access.

Do you.

What's your view on that?

Should should school Muslim schools be allowed to participate in the program.

This isn't about religion, This is about terrorism and that's.

What it's about.

So so in that case, if a school is affiliated with Muslims with Muslim religion. But you know is like many Muslims in Texas, you know, law abiding, faithful, you know, people members of the community. You don't see any issue with with them being allowed to.

Participate as long as they're not affiliated with the terrorist organizations. Like I said, this is about not about religion, this is about terrorism.

Okay, very good.

I want to ask you know, the other thing that you have been in the news about lately was your purchase of the ranch in New Mexico that was owned by Jeffrey Epstein. Tell us about the decision to buy that ranch.

Sure, it's really nothing, Burger. The property was on the market for several years. South the Bees had it listed and then they they lost the listing and the Concierge auction company was going to auction the property, and so we decided to buy it and turn a place of darkness into a place of light, as simple as that.

They assured me that the.

Revenue and the money they were getting would go to the victims, and it did, and that's I was happy to help them out.

And so that's the process.

I was converting that ranch into a Christian retreat and and we had a lot of ideas to do it and how to do it, and so that's going ongoing, and that's what I'm gonna do.

Have have you have the authorities asked to visit the ranch? Would would you make it available to them if they did?

Of course, of course we would absolutely, one hundred percent. And I have no one ever asked to come out there. We asked people to come out, they assured me that they didn't need to. And so now that they you know, of three million pages being dropped, there's a lot more emphasis on that, and I get it.

I mean I won't. I want the answers.

And so the Attorney General's Office is out there and done their investigations and I wasn't there, but it's my understanding they haven't found anything, but they have complete free rank. Any law enforcement agency just they can come out there anytime. They won't and they have been and I'm I don't know if they will continue to, but that's up to them.

Okay.

Reminder for folks audience questions, If you have a question, you can submit it online. Are of insturrector Maddie Wallda is sending them to my phone. So if you look at me reading my phone. I'm not playing the world over here, I am. I'm looking at the questions. I'm going to go to audience questions right after this, but just one last question for you. If you win the general election, serve a four year term, and are at the end of that term and looking back, how will you define success?

What will you what should we look at, what metrics?

What anything should we should we viewed to say to decide whether don ha Fines was a successful.

Controller delivering on my campaign promises.

I don't make promises, I don't deliver, and it won't be from a lack of trying. And I've got a lot of those on the website and people expect me that to do that, and they trust me to do that, and that's what I'm gonna do. And a lot of that is making sure we're efficient in government and we root out fraud, wasting, abuse, and we hope people accountable.

Excellent, Thank you, Okay, So let's go to some of your questions now. I'm going to ask from John in East Texas. He asks, what is your philosophy on broadband grants for closing the digital divide in Texas?

Well, I can tell you there's I get a lot of comments from a lot of businesses and people about that that whole division.

Now, you know, giving out the grants and things like that.

You know, I'm not there, so I can't answer it completely, but I think it needs to be looked at, and we need to make sure that rural Texans are good in the service they need and the original intent of the legislation. Federal money and the state money is being spent wisely and properly and effectively.

That's the goal, do you know.

I mean, there are a lot of grants that are issued through the Comptroller's office. Do you are there any that you feel like need to be cut? Is there a process that you would want to go through to review those?

Well, I'll be doing a process to review everything.

Everything.

There's nothing off limits, and I think that's my job as chief financial officer. You know, if the state legislature or the federal government says this is going to be spent in this area, we're going to follow up on that. But I've got to be sure that it's being spent correctly. Again, that we're not just whimsically awarding contracts to these people. They're not The bid process isn't being handled correctly. We've got to make sure that it's done right.

Excellent, Okay, let's see here. I want to ask this. This is from Renee in Austin, and I suspect maybe Renee might be a Comptroller's Office employee because she asks the comptroller employs a lot of folks. What sort of boss will you be? How will you maintain the good employee morale established under the Hagar administration?

Well, team members.

As a business person, having loyalty and a sense of a purpose with our team members, having an open door with the team members is huge.

I'll be there every day.

This is a six person I mean a six day job, ten hours a day, and I want to visit with the team members, talk to them and build up our morale.

Because they need to know their purpose. Why are they there?

I need to know that how are they accomplishing their mission? And I think it's going to be a great relationship with the team members in the Comptroller's Office because I know we're all working for the same goal.

Cole from Round Rock asks in twenty twenty two, when running for governor, you told the Texas Nationalist Movement that you would support a referendum on Texas independence. Do you support Texas independence?

I think people have a right to weigh in on this.

I don't know if it's you know how much much popularity it has, but I don't see any reason that people couldn't weigh in on it.

People could have vote, but it's not it's not.

Look, I'm not supporting necessarily succeeding from the nation. You know, Sam Houston didn't want to do that. He didn't like that idea and it didn't go good for Texas. So I'm not trying to repeat that at all. But I do like the fact that people have a voice and whatever it is that they want to have Texas do so.

Thank you, John and Austin asks. Through rulemaking and policy, the Comptroller's office has long head a reputation for stretching authority, for stretching the authority the legislature intended or clearly authorized, leading to many lawsuits. What are your thoughts on addressing this? Do you agree with the premise of that question?

Not that I've seen. I really don't.

I haven't seen the contra I mean John Sharp, who I visited with last week, he didn't. We didn't talk about the litigation. Look, I'm sure there'll be litigation. I don't doubt that. That's why we need a really good ag But John told me that, you know, he saved four billion dollars when when the legislature really needed the money. And I think I can save a lot more than that. That was twenty five years ago. So how you do that?

Maybe not, but our goal is.

To be efficient and that's what I'm going to do in save tax payer money.

Excellent in your opinion, does the Comptroller have unilateral authority to eliminate initiatives, programs, or agencies that have been created and funded by the legislature?

If so, under what circumstances.

No, I don't think so.

It would depend. I don't think so. I don't think they liked it.

All right.

Sandy from McCallen asks, how do you plan to fund more TIFA students? TIFA being the Texas Education Freedom Accounts, vouchers, essays, or your incentives if you shift the agency's focus from audit auditing businesses, which can lead to less tax collection, to fund those new students or programs that come from the gr fund.

Well, I don't think I tend to increase the revenue for the State of Texas through spending and savings, right, And so I don't think not auditing the businesses is going to make it give us a decrease in our revenue.

I really don't.

Most businesses just want to pay the tax they owe and they want certainty in the process.

They want clarity in the process.

And uh, and so that's what I'm going to give them, clarity and certainty and then and we'll keep auditing businesses.

There's no doubt. If you owe it, you need to pay it.

But I think I can save a lot of money by auditing government, and that's going to increase.

Our Do you do you think that those employees are transferable, Like, are those skills the same auditing you know, the businesses, in the in the government.

You know, that's an interesting question.

And uh, let's hope so we can train them to it is a different skill set, there's definitely it's a different skill set. But optimistic that they we can train those folks to do both.

Okay, very good. A good question here. What do you make of Governor Abbott's performance?

Uh?

You know recently, and and and I was gonna say too, I mean, do you think your run for governor in twenty twenty two had an impact on you know, as this question frames that pushing pushing him further to the.

Right, I think, Uh, the governor's doing a good job now. I think he's doing a real good job on there. My campaign definitely had an impact on him.

And also on the state.

And everything I've campaigned for in my political career has an impact, you know, things I advocated for in the state Senate to things I had advocated on the campaign trail, it has an impact. And so but I think he's doing a good job right now, and I'm happy to work with him.

If you're elected to control or do you view that as being your last stop and elected office?

Well, I like to point this out.

A lot of people run for controller and they won, and they all thought they were going to be something else, right, They all want to be governor, lieutenant governor. Not one controller has ever been governor in the history of Texas. Not only one's ever been lt and that was Bob Bullock. So it hasn't been a great stepping stone. There's no stone to step on. So we've only had twenty seven control in the history of Texas, so we've had more governors than we would control.

Indeed, indeed, okay, so you've pledged, if elected, to downsize government and approve efficiency. Should see employees, particularly those in the Comptroller's office be concerned about potential staff reductions? Are you are you going to explore you know, when you step in, you know, reducing the size of the staff in that office.

Yes, that's what do dan is about?

Yeah?

Can we get our work done with less people? That's what a good business person would always ask, right, you know, is you know, can we get this done with less people and spend less money?

Do you know a I is coming? You know that's going to have a lot of impact.

Do you expect, you know, if if you are elected, do you expect to come in with a plan for how that should look or is it going to take some time to sort of evaluate the you know, the lay of the land.

Oh, definitely takes some time.

Okay, very good.

Let's see here the another audience question. Republicans have led Texas for roughly thirty years. Is it fair to say that any current waste and efficiencies in state government stem from Republican led priorities.

Well, I like to use this metaphor.

You know, we we all have garages and they get they just pile up. You know, everything gets put in the garage and this is the last thing you want to do. You don't want to take a weekend off cleaning and out and things like that. But it's our you know. But it still gets in there, and so I look at it. It's that's what I'm gonna do, clean out the garage. And everybody loves pulling in once it's cleaned out. And that's what we're gonna do. We're going to clean out the garage and get it done.

That's that resonates as a as a homeowner with me in a very messy garage. So very good.

Tell me just a little bit about your.

I'm gonna go big picture now if you're going into specifics your politicalhilosophy, like how did how did you come to believe what you believe about government and policy?

Hmmm, well that's a that could be a ten minute discussion on that deal.

But uh, let's just take it from this.

What what is the role of government, what's the proper role, what's the end game. I always like to ask people, what's the end game? What is it you want? Where do you see government? What's the purpose of government? Why were we did our founders create us? How did they create what were they thinking? And the fundamental thing I'll tell you is that our liberties come from God, not the government. That's what makes us special, that's what makes us unique. And I wish everything I could get that

I think it's critical that we.

Always remember that, because the last government we have, the longer the government can survive.

How did your experience in the Senate?

How do you think that would shape you as someone in a state wide elected office?

Well, as a business man. I went down there.

To solve problems, and I realized that that's not always what members want to do, and often they create a problem, or they'll try to solve the symptom of the problem instead of the problem itself, and there's really no sense of urgency. I have a huge sense of urgency to get things done quickly.

As a business person.

We find a problem, we monetize the solutions, and we keep moving.

I'm not a fan of committees.

There's a lot of people on different committees and volunteers across the state that serve the state of Texas.

That's just not my leadership style.

I'm not I'm a guy that's the buck stops on my desk and I'm gonna make the decision. I'm not perfect. I'm gonna make mistakes, I'm sure of that, but I'm gonna own them, and we're going to learn from them, and we're going to move on. We're gonna move and we're going to keep moving with speed and efficiency and with a sense of purpose.

And that's not how government operates. It just doesn't. They're not there to solve the problems. I was really surprised by that.

Well, I appreciate you taking the time to speak with This has been an interesting conversation. I want to say thank you to all of our Tribute members who have been here and help support this event. Best of luck in the campaign and it's great talking with you.

Thank you, Matthew. I appreciate it.

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