Long-time Friend of Armstrong Getty, Lanhee Chen, talks about his campaign to become the next controller of the State of California.
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What the hell is it? Controller? Anyway, it's Armstrong and Getty extra large because four hours simply isn't enough. This is Armstrong and Getty extra large. When we found out a friend of ours is running for state controller in California, I thought, well, he'd be great at that. Whatever that is? Um is controller different than controllers? I believe it's the same thing, roughly, but perhaps lanh chen knows you know him from the Armstrong and Getty Show. Lani chenned David and Diane Stuffy fellow, an American public policy Studies at the Uver Institution, Director Domestic Policy Studies at Stanford University, frequent guest on cable TV, and now the officially announced candidate for controller in the state of California. Hello, Lon, Hey, how are you? It is great to be with you, gentlemen. Thank you. Can you answer the initial question of his controller and control are the same thing? And what is one of them? Yeah? So in California we call it a controller. In New York City they call it a comptroller. In different states they call it different things. I think the concept is basically the same, which is, you need to have somebody who watches over the money that a state or local entity is spending us very similar to a corporate context that the controller is responsible for essentially auditing outbound spending, is responsible for accounting for that. Um, we can get into this a little bit more. The California State controllers powers and responsibilities are actually even broader than that. But at base, this job is about accountability, it's about independence, it's about prudence, and those are all things that I think I can bring to this job, and that's why I'm really excited to take this step in in my in my journey. Can I ask you an unrelated question, just briefly, Do we get to talk to you anymore about the issues of the day or do you have to kind of keep your nose clean since you're running for office? Well, uh, you know, it's certainly in issues relating to California. You know, I'm I'd love to talk about those kinds of things and figure out, uh, you know, how I can weigh in, But I'm going to be pretty focused on this race and pretty focused on commenting on issues that have pertinence to this race in this office. So fair enough, so, would the controller be the one that says to the state, Hey, he's spending all this money on the bullet train is a bad idea, or like, like, what what issues might regular voters in California be aware of the controllers sticking their nose into. Yeah, so, so to back up for a second, we have a really interesting structure for accountability in California. We have someone called the California State Auditor, who is not actually the controller. The auditor can investigate items at the request of the legislature. So, for example, you know, many of of your listeners will have heard about this unemployment insurance fiasco we have in California where essentially fraudulent checks went out, the biggest, biggest fraud in California state history, thirty billion dollars with a b billion dollars. Yeah, so you know, the auditor has done some great reporting on you know, here's what went wrong, here's why it went wrong. So you may ask, well, if you've got an auditor, what do you need the controller for the answer is, the controller has independent authority to audit any state or local agency if they're spending state money for any reason at all, at any time. So the controller doesn't need someone else's permission to go in and look at a program life unemployment insurance, like the high speed Whale authority, like the state medical system, like in home supportive services, basically any system that you can think of, any state system or even localities. In fact, the controller has to conduct regular audits of school districts and how school districts are spending their money. So the great thing about the controller's office, the thing that excites me, is the ability to go in and essentially shed light on all sorts of different things that are going out in our state. And the controller can certainly say, listen, here's what's happening. Here are some recommendations on how we can fix it. Here's a timeline that we should use to hold people accountable. But fundamentally it's then up to the legislature and the governor to make those changes. That the controller is not a policy maker in the same way that the governor or legislators are, but the controller can sure be, you know, kind of a pain in everyone's we're in basically saying why aren't you doing this, Why aren't you doing that? You know, why are we spending so much money on this? Why are we spending so much money on that? I see it as the ultimate source of information for the people of the state of California. Well, it strikes me that that position could be an unbelievable watchdog for the people. I mean, really being a hawk or well, I guess being a dog one moment, a hawk the next. I don't know. But you could be a real hero for the taxpayers, because we all know, particularly in corrupt Defornia, there's an enormous amount of money thrown around and nobody knows where it's going. Well, I mean, let's talk about the homelessness Christis as an example of that, right, I mean, we're spending tens of billions of dollars a year trying to address this problem at the state level, at local levels l A. San Francisco, I think the problem is getting worse. I don't think it's getting better. I think the pandemic accentuated a lot of challenges that we have. On that account, it'd be very nice to hear how much we're paying for the tents that are going up in some of these can be very nice to hear, you know, how much we're spending on mental health services of anything at all. So part of this is about helping people understand priorities and helping people understand where their money is going. Yeah, I got the perfect good example out of the news of the day in that yesterday, Gavin Newsome, governor of California announced, I think it was one point one billion dollars to clean up our roadways, graffiti, trash, all that sort of stuff. He said, the state is dirty. I'm glad he finally noticed, because the state is very dirty. But but but when I read that on the air, I said, um, I love the idea of cleaning up all this garbage, but I have no belief that that one point one billion dollars, at the end of it being spent, will actually have cleaned up the roads. And so it's like someone like you were the controller. You could make sure that that spent properly well right, and we could we could demonstrate with an audit exactly where that one point one billion dollars went. And then what we can do is we can do something called performance based budgeting. We can say, based on what you're spending, here is the outcome you've gotten. We can almost give it a letter grade. We can say, look, you spent one point one billion taking up the trash, and that got a D minus. Maybe in the future, Let's figure out either a smarter way to spend that one point one billion dollars, or maybe we don't spend that at all, we spend it on something else and we'll actually get the trash picked up. Right, So you're calling for accountability and government spending. What kind of radical are you? Yeah, well that this this is gonna be in trouble with that. This is a very extreme position I'm taking. I realize that. Yeah, well that gets us to the really the next question, I think the big obvious question. There are virtually no elected Republicans in the state of California anywhere. How do you think you're going to get people to vote for you as controller? Well, you know that the challenge is significant. So Republican hasn't been elected statewide in California since two thousand six. There hasn't been a Republican in the Controller's office since the nineteen seventies, so it's been it's been quite a long time. Um here's here's I think the way I approached this when I talked to Californians about the things I'd like to do as controller. Uh, some of the stuff we've talked about, accountability, transparency, figuring out how to be an independent voice on all sorts of different issues. I get a lot of agreement from Democrats, from Republicans, from independence, and if I'm gonna win this race, it's going to have to be with the support of people across the political spectrum. And you know, my approach is not particularly ideological. That may be disappointing to some. It's not particularly partisan. It is essentially technocratic. It's someone who wants to come in and solve problems. And I think that vision for this office at this time when Californians are very frustrated with what's going on. You know, whether you agree with the recall or not of Governor Gavin Newsom, surely everyone agrees that California can be doing better. And the point I'm trying to make is, you know, I grew up in California, I live in California now. I do love this state, but I think we can do better. And that's a message that people say, yeah, you know what, I agree with that. You know, partisan Democrats, people who are independents. We're going to have to get support across the political spectrum. And that's why, you know, this may be disappointing to some, But I intend to approach these issues and talk about these issues and be laser focused on what I can do as controller to help make them better. Is controller and actual word? Or was that just a misprint? Nobody had the guts to correct them. So that sounds great. What you just said sounds fantastic. I mean, and you know, we unfortunately are a lot of preaching to the choir people that would already agree with you, you being the controller. I wish we could reach more ears of Democrats because I think a lot of Democrats if they heard that, Okay, he's not going to be he's not trying to, you know, be Trump or anything like that. He's just trying to make sure the money's not misspend. I think you can get a lot of people to vote for you. Yeah. I can't wait to hear what various other entities try to pin on you. But you know, and we're not gonna tell you how to do your job because you're way smarter than us and substantially better looking. But you know, I think we have decent we have decent instincts at least um and and one way I've tried to pitch you know, fiscal conservatism or fiscal responsibilitarianism, that's your word, because conservative comes loaded with a bunch of stuff, right, it's like thinking about abortion or whatever. No responsibility is a good word. But as I've said to my friends on the left, if your cause is mental health care, let's make sure every dime that's being wasted in government be found, rooted out and poured into mental healthcare. If you're concerned about the homeless, let's make sure the dollars we spend actually help the homeless. If you want to help pregnant illegal alien mother trans mothers, there's plenty of money. Let's root out to waste and redundancy, and we can find money to do what you think is it needs to be done. I think a message like that lone he might actually really catch democrats. Heres. Yeah, you know, you guys raise some really good points, which is that there's all sorts of political caricature and going on. And one of the things that I know opponents are going to come after me with they say, oh, he wants to cut spending on all these important priorities. You know, here's my point. Let's spend smarter. Let's spend smarter as you say, we've got some big problems, and I think people agree. We've got to spend our tax dollars wisely to address these problems. Mental health care is something maybe we should be investing more in, Maybe we should be doing more there, but gosh, let's figure out how we're spending it now and if it's effective. If it's effective, let's go and double down on things that are effective. Let's go and potentially and more on things that are affective. But that also means, at the same time, we have to be willing to make tough choices about things that aren't working, even things that sound good, that sound like they should produce good results. If we're not spending smarter, if we're not thinking about these problems and how to address them with a data driven approach, we are just literally lighting the money on fire. You might as well go outside, make a big pile of money and light it on fire, because that is essentially what we're doing now in so many programs. I'm seeing a TV ad with Lon hey Chin and a big pile of money being lit on fire. That's what we're doing every day, folks. How about a big bear But but I but I you know, I mean, I just, I really it pains me to see what we're doing now in our state. It is it's just dumb. We're better than this. We can do better than this. You know, we can't just keep throwing money out the window at problems that aren't getting better. If the problems we're getting better, then we say, yeah, go spend the money, go make the problem better. But that's not what's happening now. So this, to me is just it's just a very basic thing. Guys. It's like blocking and tackling in football, the basics. Right in baseball, you want to get down low and steal the baseball. This is we're just stuff we're not doing and it's so frustrating to me. And that's why I decided to get into this race, because it's like, at some point you just gotta go do it right. And I can talk about fixing these problems and I can write about them, but if you really want to make them better, you just gotta be willing to get an arena. Well, that's beautifully said. And if you do win the office of Controller of the State of California, can you get me on one of those phony boards because it seems like a great gig. You meet a few times a year, right, get a big chat, usually the golf course. Um, you would be amazed at how many of these boards and commissions there are, and and and and some of them. I read them. I read the title like four or five times. I'm still not sure what they do. I don't care. Just get me on one. So you know, one thing I think that you've got on your side here running as a Republican is I've been pretty surprised at how the completely blue run legislature has spanked Gavin Newsom a couple of times, at least verbally. I mean, the Sacramento b has been covered this quite a bit. One over the whole masks thing. They were really mad at the way he handled that, spending a billion dollars without a bid and the masks were not good and all that sort of. And then recently he seems pretty clearly lied about how many acres of fire control we're taking care of, and then the Democrat led the legislatures banked him on that again, calling him out for it. So they might be actually looking for somebody that's gonna, you know, speak the truth. Yeah, you know, I think there's This is frustration again. I think people they just don't want to be told problems are being solved when they're not actually being solved. And it's like who you're gonna believe, like this guy's words or your own lying eyes. Right, It's kind of like as you look at the homelessness problem, as you look at how we have had increasingly severe wildfires, how we are in drought but can't seem to have the storage to ensure that we've got proper water supply. People look at all these challenges and they say, listen, something is not right, something is not done as it's supposed to be done. And you know, people understand. They send a check to the Franchise Tax Board for their income taxes, they pay property taxes. I mean they people get it right. They sort of understand intuitively, I'm spending all this money, what the heck am I getting for? You know? And uh, you keep mentioning the homeless situation, and that's probably a good thing to do because that might be the number one because that's one Bill Maher, you know Bill Maher, lefty one of the leading liberals in the country, certainly in California. He keeps talking about the where's all this money going? Why does it cost a hundred thousand dollars for a tent for one person to being there? He might have you on his show to talk about this sort of thing. He'd be the kind of guy that would agree, this is ridiculous. All the money we spend on almost sism, we're gett no bang for a book. Yeah. I've actually done his show in the past. It's it's very entertaining, but it does tell you where people's heads are at, which is and and by the way, folks on the left approach from the perspective of you know, we're not helping people. We're you know, we need to be helping people more, and you know that's a policy debate we need to have, but we're not having it the facts right now. This is something that bothers me about our politics generally, guys, and we talked about this a lot. It's like we hear all these arguments and nothing really seems to be grounded in any kind of reality of what's actually going on. My point is, if you want to have a debate about the best way to solve homelessness, I am all for us having that debate, but let's have some facts from the table, you know, let's just say, look, here's what we're spending it on. Here are the forty three programs? Are the forty three things? And I'm making that number up. I'd have to go in and see what the exact number is. But some number of programs that we're that we're working on to address this problem. How's that actually working for you? How's that working for us? And then we can have it. Then we can have a discussion. And if the one party led legislature decide they want to keep doubling down on things that aren't working, then at least the public will know. The public will know exactly they chose to spend another four billion dollars of your tax dollars on a program that controller graded a D minus. How does that well? Well? I think if those words and thoughts reach the ears of voters, you will do very very well. But that's the great challenge, especially in so called down ticket race, is just getting any attention whatsoever. Uh, you know, we we wish you well in that endeavor. I'm I have despaired for the elector to California. Just don't think people are paying attention or digging into facts. All they know is, for instance, they hated Donald Trump, therefore they vote for days And it's as simple as that. But I hope I'm wrong. Well that's something I'm encouraging voters. You know. I think there's a tendency as as as this campaign has started, and I've done a number of interviews about it. You know, people want to put you into a box. The the the media and others. They want to put you into a box. Right. Are you a never Trumper? Are you uh maga type? Are you uh you know, conservative Republican? Are you progressive? Liberal? And you know what I say to people is I don't I don't want to be defined by someone else. I don't want to be defined by some you know, ideology. I'm going to be defined by my ideas, by the things I want to do. And if you find that answer insufficient, I'm sorry. But this campaign is about ideas, and it's about ideas for the future of California. And if you want to have a debate about my ideas, I will sit here and debate you all day long. We can have a day long conversation about it. I will answer every question you have about my ideas. But fundamentally, the problem we have in our politics is there's too many people chasing shiny objects. The media is partially responsible for this. The the explosion and social media and how we get our news as part of this as well. But but fundamentally my goal is let's have a conversation about what I can to a controller to make California better. If you disagree with some of those ideas, totally fine. I'm happy to have that conversation. But it is going to be hard to reach everybody, which is why it's important that I talked to folks like you, guys that have audiences and influence, and I do this all up and down the state, and that's why I intend to do I'm putting a bumper sticker on my car. Put an Asian in charge of math vote lanha Chen, come controller. I don't appreciate the stereotype, Lana. He I'm thinking California Board of Barbering and Cosmetology be a good place. There you go, I've gotten the haircuts my whole life, your whole life. Yeah, but it's the thing your your that that expertise may actually be more relevant than the expertise of some of the people that end up on these boards. I mean, it's it's anyway we can we can talk about boarding commisions another time, but there's there's a there's over seventy of them. The controller sits on, believe it or not, the controller sits on the California Coastal Commission in even numbered years. And that's a weird make sense, but it's like, it's like what happens in the odd number of years. It's like, in the odd number of years, there's no decisions that need to be made when the controllers involved in the even number of years, they've got to be there. It's like, who came up with our friends John and Ken in Los Angeles. You're probably on their show too, but they they've been doing this for years, looking at the boards and how often they meet and what they get paid and everything. I mean, well, Lon he good luck, go get them. Huh Hey, thanks guys. I appreciate the time on the show and the opportunity to talk about the campaign and these issues. So thank you very much. Thank you got it. I'll tell you what, um, we have had a lot of people on running for a lot of different offices. I don't think I've ever wanted somebody to win and believed in the more than this one. I think he could save to a large extent, the state of California. And I honestly think that the challenge is going to be what you said, getting getting his thoughts and face and name in front of enough people, enough Democrats. But I honestly think if he could get the attention of every voter in California, have him listening lo he from, they'd say, Yeah, I don't care if there's an R next to his name. We need somebody who's just gonna look at this stuff and figuring out, Okay, if we if we approve eighteen quintrillion dollars to fight homelessness in Los Angeles, where's the damn money go? Because I'm paying for it? And two years later they're more homeless people, right right, yeah, exactly. Meanwhile, the forces that benefit enormously rake in cash from irresponsible, irresponsible spending aren't going to fight against him tooth and nail. They benefit from bad government and they know it. So I didn't want to do this with him on the line. What if you First of all, I don't think it's enough of a I don't remember ever voting for controller in my life. If I ever did, I probably just checked the R box and didn't even recognize the names. Um. So you know, it's like you said, it's not a hot ticket rates anyway. I don't know how much you know debates you'll see or bumper stickers or billboards or anything like that about people arguing in the barber shops, in the grocery stores of America. You're voting for her. Yeah, I'm not sure that they'll rise. But if you were an opponent, what would you, uh, how would you attack him? You're a d running. You're the next in line who had the the you know, I'm sure is the way it works. You're the next in line to get this job, to let the legislator spend money however they want and never pay attention to it. But what's your knock on Lone? It's a no brainer. He will cut spending for our for our state's children, our school children. He wants to cut spending for our nurses, for our fighter fighters. He'll cut spending from the miracle bullet train that will whisk us from here to You know, it's just he's a crazy man who's gonna cut off and children. You find a stock photo it's easy of him and Mitt Romney together smiling. He worked to get Mitt Romney elected. Remember Mitt Romney with a cash coming out of his pockets and so point, Oh, yeah, it'll be stupid because you can't. You can't attack him on the issues. It's got to be stupid, right, Yeah. You would think as much as we pay in taxes that you would pay attention to where it goes. And when you pay the property taxes that I'm paying, you're paying, everybody's paying, and the homeless situation keeps getting worse, that you would actually hold somebody accountable, you would think. But we don't. It's got to be the quality of life stuff. Because, as I've made clear a million times, the brilliant scheme of the left in California has been to narrow the tax base as much as possible, to really soak the high earners and and then leave everybody else more or less in the clear. Now we got granted their gas taxes and fees and the rest of it, and working class people do pay, but they don't pay nearly a proportional amount in California. So counting on people to be desperate for their tax dollars to be spent wisely. That will never work in California. And that was the idea from the beginning. I'm telling you, somebody was typing it and they hit the pee with their pinky, and they didn't have the guts to tell their boss that the word is not compatroller. And that's how it guts started. Sense I agree. Extra large