How Taxes Destroyed Hollywood

[00:00:06] If you're a California conservative, a libertarian, a moderate Democrat, believe in common sense, or just the sane person, this is the political podcast for you. It's the California Underground Podcast.

[00:00:27] What's going on, everybody? Thanks for tuning into another episode of the California Underground Podcast, the most trusted podcast for all things California politics. I'm your host, Phil. And as always with me, my trusty cohost, the best, the fastest researcher in the West. How's it going, Camille? It's good. It's good. Good? I heard your, you still have your foster cat in the background? Is that the noise I hear? Yes, I'm so sorry. I'm, yes, I'm trying to get him home, but he's here with us. That's fine. I applaud anyone.

[00:00:55] Reminding us that he's with us. I applaud anybody who fosters any sort of animal that, that helps them out. I'm an animal lover. So, um, we've got a lot to cover tonight. Um, I know we usually start by talking about the weather. We're not gonna talk about the weather tonight. Although before we do get started for everybody, I'm gonna let you down easy right now. Kamala Harris is not on the show tonight and maybe she's watching. I don't know. Maybe she's in the chat right now.

[00:01:21] Maybe she's an anonymous person watching the chat, but Kamala Harris is not on the show tonight. That was our April fool's joke for this year. Um, so people in the chat, I'm sorry that she won't be appearing. Uh, but if you have a good story about an April fools, let us know in the chat. I'd love to hear a really good April fool's joke that someone may have played on you. So we got a lot or that you played. Yeah, it could be that you played on somebody else.

[00:01:50] So, um, we got a lot to talk about tonight. Uh, also breaking news, a whole bunch of stuff happening that we're, we can't even get to. That's how crazy the day has been in terms of California news. We're going to talk about the Newsome recall, the new one. Yes, there is a new Newsome recall. It is happening. Um, it has moved forward so it can collect signatures. We're going to give our opinion on that.

[00:02:14] Uh, LA County, this is not an April fool's joke. It's a really cool. If it would, it's a really cruel joke that your sales tax is going up. So congratulations, LA County. Things just keep getting better and better. I feel like LA has been giving us a ton of content so far in 2025 and it's only April. So, um, thank you LA for giving us so much to talk about and politics is just the grift that keeps on grifting, you know?

[00:02:41] Yeah. Uh, I feel like it's been very heavy LA news this year, but obviously with the wildfires and everything going on, there's a lot to talk about. And we have another LA story sort of, uh, we're going to talk about Hollywood and how California taxes have killed Hollywood and what they're trying to do to resurrect it and save it. If it's even possible to be saved at all at this point. But before we get started, we always like to start with our cringe moment of the week.

[00:03:09] Now I may have mentioned it on this show. I myself am a Tesla owner. Um, I'm a fan. I love my Tesla. I'm a convert. I never thought I'd be a convert to electric cars and Tesla's. Um, I will say that there is a heightened sense of awareness now with things that have been happening with Tesla's.

[00:03:34] Uh, if you don't know, Tesla has what they call sentry mode. So when you leave the car, you put it in sentry mode. And basically those 360 cameras that they use for turn signals for self-driving, they turn on and they just watch everything that's going on around the car.

[00:03:57] So basically just watches everything keeps an eye on the car. We've had to turn that on recently with the Tesla does drain the battery a little bit more, but all things considered, it's not that, you know, the, the, the trade off is you either catch someone trying to do something to your Tesla or you save a little bit in battery.

[00:04:19] So I figure it's worth a little bit of battery to catch someone. Um, and if you've seen on online, there's been a bunch of people vandalizing Tesla's. Have you seen any of these videos of people vandalizing Tesla's? Oh yeah. Every day, every day they're posted all over Twitter, which I'm shocked that at this point, the people haven't seen these videos and been like, wait a second, there's cameras on Tesla's that catch you doing this.

[00:04:46] Like, and people are just that, uh, you know, obsessed with Elon Musk that they're just like, no, like we're going to keep keen Tesla's and keep vandalizing Tesla's. Um, but we have a video today. One guy, I think he was out in Boston, but we're going to, we're going to watch him after he was caught and confronted by someone. Someone was able to catch their, their vandalizer.

[00:05:09] So this is our cringe moment of the week. See, to talk about the weather, not that type of cloud. See, Kamala made an appearance, maybe not live in person, but Kamala is always with us. All right. So here's the video. Do we freeze? Hmm. I see the video. I just don't know. It's a key, sir. We see it on the video. It's not a key. Did you, is it a swastika? I was probably putting my keys in my pocket. Is it a swastika?

[00:05:39] Have you looked at your car? Is there, is there a key mark? Is it a swastika? That's impossible. It's at the police right now. It's being fingerprinted. What do you mean it's being fingerprinted? Because they, they were trying to track you down. Thankfully Facebook tracked you down. So your business, your freaking livelihood, everything now, because you chose to write a, so to tell Facebook that you're sorry for writing a swastika on a Tesla. Listen, I said, I'm sorry. For what? And I apologize.

[00:06:08] I have nothing against your car and I have nothing against you. So why did you write a swastika on a Tesla? Obviously I have something against Elon Musk, but that's not the way to show my. So Elon Musk owns that car? No, he owns the company. It was so, it was bought and paid for a long time ago. That's why it's misguided. And obviously I did not intend to do this. All right, we're going to wait for that. So obvious.

[00:06:30] Yeah, obviously I did not intend to do this. I only bent over and got caught on camera doing this to your car. I didn't intend to do it. I fell with my keys out. And key to swastika. I fell and I was kneeling at the same time. My arm just happened to make a swastika. Yeah. And all it's, it's a crayon thing.

[00:06:53] What is really wild is this guy saying, I'm sorry, you're upset. Yeah. Excuse me? Like he's basically saying like, well, it sucks that, you know, you're really mad about the fact that I keyed your car. I'm sorry that you're upset about me keying your car. I don't know what you want me to tell you. But chill your feelings. Yeah. Why are you, why are you telling me so hard? I mean, geez, you seem really sensitive about me, key in your car.

[00:07:22] I was thinking about this before we hopped onto the show. And I, based on the amount of swastikas leftists have been drawing on Tesla's and just in general in the past couple of years, I'm at the point where I think more swastikas have been drawn by American leftists at this point than all neo-Nazis in American history.

[00:07:46] Like they are drawing swastikas at an alarmingly fast rate that they're just obsessed with drawing swastikas. And it's funny because wasn't that what Nazis did to Jewish business owners as they used to draw swastikas on everything and kind of bully them into compliance by drawing swastikas? I don't know. Probably. Should we grok it? No.

[00:08:14] Yeah. So this guy owns a car service company in this, in this area. And he's like, Oh, I'll just, I'll take it in and I'll fix it for you. I'll just give you a free service. And the guy's like, no, like that doesn't count. Like you can't just, you didn't know this. The guy owns a car. I didn't even see this video before. Like, okay. So, okay. Maybe he's like, but I mean, I think anyone that goes around acting like that isn't necessarily all there.

[00:08:43] Like that's, it's not a normal thing to do, but maybe that's like his way of like, Oh, maybe I could get some business. Cause he doesn't know that the cameras aren't there. He's going to get caught. And he's just like, I'll just go like mess up a bunch of Teslas and everyone will come to me and I'll fix their cars. And yay me for reaping the benefits. It's a weird strategy to try and go after Teslas. Look, if you're trying to wall a swastika on anything or try to mess up any car or like

[00:09:10] key a car, you're, you're, you're not all there. Like I said, that's not normal. So. No. Um, as much as I enjoy the guy calling him out, there's some things he said that I was like, um, I don't think the Facebook tracked you down and found you specifically. Um, also he was, he made a good point about, I don't, Elon Musk doesn't own that Tesla. Like you're Elon Musk has already been paid for that Tesla.

[00:09:38] And that that's why it doesn't really make any sense with these protests where we're, Oh, we're going to bomb or we're going to firebomb cars. We're going to scratch up cars. It's like, you're not hurting Elon Musk because people have already bought these cars. They're out on the road. He's already made that profit. Tesla's already made that profit. But, and I don't understand the whole, well then sell your car so that someone else deals with getting it. Like, like, I don't know.

[00:10:05] Are they, are you supposed to like put a note that I bought this used? Don't touch my car. I just, I don't get it. What do they hope to accomplish by saying, sell your car, get rid of your car. Like there's no, there's no logic here. No, not at all. Um, and when it's always funny how they get caught and they, they don't know what to say and they just go, Oh, I'm, I'm, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get caught. That's really what they're saying. I don't need to hurt your feelings, but you know, control your emotions there. I'm sorry.

[00:10:35] I'm sorry. You're upset that I keyed your car and it was a crayon, bro. It wasn't even a key. Okay. Um, so anyway, if you're a Tesla owner, keep it in century mode. That's all I'm saying. Just keep it in century mode. You might catch somebody like this out there. All right. This is really off topic, but I have to ask. Sure. Do you think maybe I should even put this idea out there because you know how, like, I mean,

[00:11:02] people are allowed to have a camera on their car, but because it's watching the area and you know how like, we're so like anti all the cameras watching us. Like, it's kind of like, you know, our legislators are always trying to push something of like, Oh, maybe we should install cameras. And we're like, quit watching us. Do you think anyone's going to sue Tesla over century mode of like your car? It's spying on us. It's your car's always watching us. Yeah.

[00:11:31] Um, that's a good question. I mean, Tesla's are always parked, mostly parked either in your house or on your private property, which it's private property. You're allowed to have a camera on your private property to protect. Um, and then everywhere else is public. So it's kind of, if it's on a street, it's public. You can film on the street, I guess. But yeah, that's actually a good question. Now you've put that out there and this guy's probably this car service guy is going to figure out how to suit.

[00:12:00] I almost didn't want to put it out there because some. Not normal person is going to be like chain. Yeah. Now, why'd you put that out there? Poor Elon's doing dealing with enough already. Now you got to put that out there. Um, all right. So our first topic of the night, if you think you're having deja vu, it's because this has

[00:12:24] happened before, uh, the recall effort of Gavin Newsom has now passed the stage, according to the secretary of state to start collecting signatures. So you're going to start seeing people out there collecting signatures. Uh, just don't send any to Carl DeMaio because he'll probably just screw them up or pretend that he submitted them and he didn't really submit them. Um, but you'll start seeing this out there where they're trying to do it again.

[00:12:53] This is more successful at least than the previous one that we looked at that raised the million dollars and we have no idea what they spent the million dollars on. They're gone. And that went up into the cloud. That, that literally went up into the cloud because it's gone. We have no idea where the million dollars went, uh, administrator fees, I guess. I don't know, but it didn't even get to this stage of like collecting signatures. So now they're going to start collecting signatures. I think they get like 1.1 million or something like that. Let me pull up. 1.3.

[00:13:23] Yeah. 1.3 million signatures until September 4th. Uh, this is according to Rob Pryor's. I can pull up the, uh, let me pull up the tweet right now. So this is according to Rob Pryor's. If you are a political junkie like us for all California news, definitely check out Rob Pryor's and subscribe. Uh, he keeps you up to date on a lot of this stuff. Very unbiased. He just kind of reports the news. Uh, California secretary of state has cleared the way for proponents of a new recall against

[00:13:52] Gavin Newsom to begin collecting signatures. So, uh, do you want to go first with your opinion or shall I? Sure. Me go first or you go. Oh, you're right. That didn't, that wasn't very clear. I'm sorry. I'll go first. Oh, go ahead. Um, and then you can just correct me if I'm wrong. Sure. So there's the first hurdle is like they have to get 10% of the signatures. So, you know, a little over a hundred thousand.

[00:14:20] And I, I forget what the, I totally read this document and had all the notes in my head and then I didn't sleep last night and all the notes are gone. So, uh, they have a certain amount of days to get. Yes, they are. They have a certain amount of days to get those, those 10%. And then, and they have to, um, submit them to the secretary of state through the, through your, like whatever signatures through the County. And then you mentioned the date, like September 10th is, is that when they have to have the 1. September 4th. September 4th. Okay.

[00:14:50] So you have to have the 1.3 million signatures in by September 4th. And then I believe there's like another 30 day period where then these get, um, what's the word I'm looking for? Verified. And so now that puts us at October. Our primary is in June, right? June, 20, 26.

[00:15:14] So I believe after the September 4th, plus the 30 days, then they have between 40 or 60 and 80 days to like get a date on the calendar for the actual recall. And I'm sure that you guys all remember our very recent recall. That was actually almost four years ago, but it feels like it was just last week.

[00:15:39] Um, so what is that after 60 to 80 days? So like two ish months after October, November, December. So that probably puts us like in between January and February of 2026 for the recall date. So now we're supposed to use all these time or resources, energy to have a recall, to try

[00:16:03] to get someone in for a few months until the, well, they would be in. And until the following year, but we would elect some cause news since time doubt. Remember come June, we're going to have it narrowed down to two candidates. And then come November, we're going to have a winner of who our new governor will be. And I feel like this is such a waste of time. The election season is heating up for 2026.

[00:16:32] As we always talk about, we have all kinds of assembly and state Senate seats that we need to flip. We've always got the local elections, plenty of city council and school board, county supervisors, all the things. Those all take up so many resources and so much money. And don't forget that the recall costs the state money and the state is broke. Reminder, the state is broke. The state has a huge deficit. It seems like every city is facing huge deficits. Like we are broke.

[00:17:04] There you go. Before I get in my opinion, a friend of ours just sent us some pretty interesting, like breaking news. This is the group chat live right now. We're breaking news. President Trump has tapped Bill Asaley to be the U.S. attorney of Los Angeles. Wow. This is reported by Politico. Okay. In California Playbook.

[00:17:32] Not to get into that topic, but how does that work since he doesn't live in that district? Is that fine? I think you can just be tapped if you're in the state. I don't know. I just saw the headline. Congratulations to Bill Asaley that Trump is recognizing him. Like that's huge. It's a little bit of a shame we're losing him in the assembly because he's stepping down immediately. He's going to start tomorrow. Wow. Okay. That's a shame.

[00:18:03] Really like Bill. More on that later. We'll obviously have to dive into that. More on that later. Yeah. Another episode, but we did want to provide that breaking news. That's why it's, you know, we do a live show. We get breaking news. We report it. All right. My opinion. I'm sort of in line with you. This is nothing but a colossal waste of time and money. He turns out next year.

[00:18:26] The timeline makes no sense because we'll at best get a recall early next year. By the time they have the recall, it will put the new person in for five or six months, maybe. And even at that point, they're still going to have to go back and have a full another election. And he's termed out. So it doesn't really matter to him whether he gets booted because there's going to be

[00:18:55] a new Democrat who has to come in and take over anyway. Maybe Katie Porter runs and tries to sneak in there. Well, maybe she runs in the recall. Yeah, that's true. Maybe she's special and she tries to sneak in there. It's just a colossal waste of time and money. And I know people are really angry at Gavin Newsom. And I understand that. And I have said this before.

[00:19:18] And as crazy as this sounds, while I am no fan of Gavin Newsom, I have always been fearful of the person coming after Gavin Newsom, because Gavin Newsom always had this at least small slimmer of hope. And I believe he still does, which is why he's doing this podcast and doing all this stuff. Come back to us. You're totally frozen. He's a president someday.

[00:19:45] And because of that, he is a little bit more moderate than most California would, than most California politicians would be. And that has saved us in the long run of, he's vetoed some bills that are a little crazy and that are, oh no. I guess I'll keep talking because that'd be awkward if we weren't. I think where he was going, and I don't want to speak for him, but I think where he was

[00:20:15] maybe kind of going with it is that Newsom, as crazy as he is and as far left as he can go, he has this ability to kind of like realize when things have gone a little bit too far and he reins it back in a little and positions himself as this like moderate who's, you know, for everybody, you know, he's not. He'll be like, oh, I'm not going to sign that bill. That's just, that's too much. And, um, and so we can not, not that he's trustworthy, but we can kind of trust that we

[00:20:43] know that Newsom will respond like that, where it's like, he'll get a, you know, he's going to slide a few things in there, but then he'll be like, oh no, no, that's too far. Let's hold back on that. And so the next governor, if, if it's a Democrat, we just never know how far left they'll really go and try to pick up where like Newsom left off and just, you know, be like, oh, that didn't pass during his term, but like, let's make sure we get that one in.

[00:21:11] And so, um, that is kind of a scary thought. And I don't know if that's where Phil's thoughts were going. That's where my thoughts were going. And, um, hopefully, hopefully Phil comes back because this is going to be a really awkward podcast without him and I'm just going to like ramble here. So I'll check the chat. Like, um, if you guys want to chime in, oh, I will say since again, Phil's not here and it's just me talking to add to what I already said.

[00:21:38] Um, I, I do understand why anyone would want a recall. Absolutely. Don't like him. Um, we need him out, but just based on when the 2021 special election happened, you know, that was in September of 2021. And then the following year, just a few months later, we had the regular election. I think people were burnt out by 20, like, okay.

[00:22:04] So first of all, of course we had the whole COVID thing and, and, you know, like that was madness. That was craziness. So we were all just like fighting all the things. Then we have the special election. Cause we're like, no, Newsom needs to go. We, we didn't win, you know, he stayed in office. Then also we had the regular election in 2022. And I sincerely feel like, at least for me, people were just burnt out.

[00:22:29] And so I feel like that would maybe happen again that, you know, if all of a sudden in January or February of 2026, we have the special election, then we need the regular election. The primaries just a few months later, I just feel like we're all going to be so mentally exhausted by politics that we won't have any interest in that regular election, which again, I mentioned there's, you know, all the, the offices that we'll be voting on for, you know, all this, all the state offices, everything we're going to be voting on superintendent of

[00:22:59] public education, insurance commissioner, treasurer, all the things. And those are all so important. And if we're just burnt out from a special election, we may not get the numbers that we need for the regular 2022 election. Welcome back, Phil. Thank you. Yeah, that was, that was weird. All of a sudden the internet just went down. Um, I, I don't know where I froze, but basically I was saying, um, you were scared of what the

[00:23:27] next governor will do and your reasons. And then we didn't hear your reasons. Right. My reasons are, um, well, I know we, we all don't like Gavin Newsom. I've always been fearful of the next person to come in behind Gavin Newsom because no, Gavin has a, they don't want you to see it. You're frozen again. There's hope about being a president. Oh no. Why is it freezing again? Come on. You're, you're getting in and out. Hold out for us.

[00:23:57] Uh, no. Why is it doing this? You're here now. Am I better? They don't want you to say your reasons. Anyway, they don't want me to say my reasons. Um, anyway, I, I just going to skip to like why I think this is a waste of time and this is a waste of money. Um, he's termed out. He's going to run for president in 2028. Most likely it probably won't be worthwhile to get someone in there.

[00:24:26] Like I said, the person will get in there for like five to six months. I'm scared of the person behind Gavin Newsom. Um, now we've seen, I think more candidates and Democrats moving towards the middle in a lot of ways. And that's good or bad. Um, but in terms of Gavin Newsom's presidential run, we should be concerned because he can raise

[00:24:51] an unlimited amount of money and that is a big concern because once he has that ability to raise an unlimited amount of money, you're basically setting him up to have an enormous war chest to go into his presidential run in 2028. You're handing him an opportunity to just raise tens of hundreds of millions of dollars to beat the recall and then take that money that's been parked there, put it in his presidential run and already be off to the races.

[00:25:16] So you're actually helping Gavin Newsom raise money for his presidential run if this recall goes through. So, um, also fun fact, as of the last recall, you, if you are a challenger, you cannot raise unlimited amounts of money. There is a cap on how much you can raise. So, uh, yeah, I don't know how that makes any sense that the person being recalled can do unlimited, but the people challenging cannot. And there's caps on that.

[00:25:46] So, uh, you're basically handing Gavin Newsom a win for his presidential run in 2028, which we all know is coming eventually anyway. So that's my reasons. It timeline doesn't work up if this was at the beginning of the term, maybe, or just show up. I don't know. Like, let's just show up and beat the governor of in 2026. Like, let's try that. Like, why don't we try just beating the governor who's running in 2026?

[00:26:15] So, um, any other thoughts on the recall going forward? Oh, I shared them all while you were gone. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, I was covered it. What's going on everybody. I want to take a quick minute and talk about today's sponsor for our show, Stopbox. If you're not familiar with Stopbox, it is a firearm retention device. No electronics, no biometrics, nothing like that that can get in the way if there's an oncoming threat and you need quick and easy access to your firearm.

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[00:27:11] So now listeners of this show can enjoy 10% off their order at Stopbox. If they go to stopbox.com forward slash California underground, they'll get that discount, support the show. You can support Stopbox and this is proudly made in the good old U S of A. So go to stopbox.com forward slash California underground for your discount. And let's get back to the show. Well, I was, yeah, maybe it's all that stuff. I was talking about Tesla and I don't know. Somebody heard it somewhere.

[00:27:40] It was like, I'm going to cut his, his internet. Um, all right. Next topic that we want to get to no April fool's joke, even though it happened on April 1st, LA County is raising taxes, sales tax today. So that's across the whole County and that affects cities differently. We have a clip from KTLA news talking about this. So let's watch that. And then we'll discuss afterwards.

[00:28:13] Thanks. I'm on a new this morning. A sales tax increase takes effect today in Los Angeles County. Mario mirrors is live in Manhattan beach with more on how much more you'll be paying at the checkout. Mario. Bob Rick, good morning. A quarter cent sales tax officially went into effect across the County at midnight. And officials estimate this will generate about a billion dollars each year to go towards homelessness services. But that means residents within the County will be having to foot the bill for that, paying

[00:28:41] a little bit more for goods and services, as you mentioned, starting today. So let's break down what that means and why it's happening. LA County voters approved measure a in November, adding a quarter cent sales tax, increasing it from 9.5 to 9.75% with no end date. About 60% of the money generated will go towards homelessness services. 36% will help start a new housing agency. And the rest officials say will support prevention and affordable housing programs.

[00:29:08] It's required officials required here to set a five year goal and track progress of spending. And that tax replaces a 2017 measure that was originally set to expire in 2027, two years from now. Measure A's goal, according to the County's homeless initiative, includes reducing the number of unhoused and people living on the streets, increasing the number of affordable housing units in the County, and also increasing the number of people transitioning from encampments into transitional or permanent housing.

[00:29:34] The County says it will continue to monitor the impact of measure A on local services and funding. But we can tell you that increase in sales tax impacting everything from groceries to car purchases. To give you an example, if your grocery bill is about $200, you're paying $19.50 in sales tax, and that's 50 cents more than you were paying yesterday. So it might not seem like a lot, but definitely adds up over time. For now, live in Manhattan Beach this morning, I'm Mario Ramirez. Back to you.

[00:30:01] This is an across-the-board tax, Mario, in L.A. County, but does it impact individual cities in L.A. differently? Yes, it can. Remember, this dates back to the November 2024 election, and you might recall if you were asked about that measure A, as well as a sales tax hike in your own city. Well, take a look, because there are some that are looking at a much higher increase because

[00:30:28] of that Lancaster will see a jump from 10.25% to 11.25% after approving a new three-quarter sales tax. Palmdale with the same increase. Asusa approving a new quarter-cent sales tax, bringing its rate to 10.75% from 10.25%. And Glendora also approving a new quarter-cent sales tax, bringing its rate to 10.75%. All of that going into effect today, and you can find more information on that at foxla.com.

[00:30:56] Given inflation and the talk of tariffs and just the cost of everything, a 1% increase is pretty significant, or it can be for some people. All right, Mario. Thank you. All right, Mario. Thank you. You sound so disappointed about the sales tax increase. Well, you voted for it by a margin of 58 to 42. So that was for the measure A? I was for measure A. I had to look at it on Ballopedia. It won 58 to 42%.

[00:31:23] So they say it in a disappointing matter of, I can't believe we have to face higher sales tax. Well, you voted for it, and here it is. San Diego, we escaped it somehow. I don't know, but we voted something like that down. LA, on top of everything else that they're facing, now has to face this increase. 11.25% sales tax in some places. That's... I just...

[00:31:54] Yeah, I just don't know how people can afford to live. I mean, it's over 10% on anything. I mean, yeah, food essentials are usually exempt, but go buy a car, you have to pay sales tax on a car, 10% on a car. How much do you have to pay extra on a car? You want to lose their homes and not even be able to afford the tent to live in? No. It's... This... 10% is crazy, and they just keep raising it more and more.

[00:32:23] What's even more insane is what it's going to, which they say is a lot of homeless spending. Now, if you are a fan of this show, we did an episode not too long ago about how bad the spending is in Los Angeles County regarding homelessness. I'll give you the rundown. It's bad. Like, really, really bad. Basically, no one has any idea where the hell the money went.

[00:32:53] So, in fact, it's so bad... I feel like it's one of those sketches. It's so bad. How bad is it? I'm sorry. I should have been more prepared. I... Sorry. I didn't put that in. Let's do it again. Take two. It's so bad... How bad? It's so bad that the federal judge, David Carter, has told city officials recently in

[00:33:20] a court hearing just about a week ago that if they don't get their act together, the federal court is going to take over homeless spending. Like, court... They're going to order a court receiver to step in and handle the money because it's that bad. There's this article from LAist. And let me pull that up for everyone to see. So, judge blasts LA homeless spending as a train wreck and threatens to seize control.

[00:33:49] A frustrated federal judge on Thursday lambasted LA city officials for failing to properly track billions in homeless spending... billions in spending on homelessness and called for a forensic audit to look into potential fraud and waste. He also threatened to appoint a court-ordered receiver to take control of the spending. For those who don't know, a court-ordered receiver is basically a person who takes an asset and holds onto it. They're like a private fiduciary appointed by the court.

[00:34:15] They take it, they hold onto it, and whatever the court tells them to do with it, then they have to do it. But it would be out of the hands of the officials. At the hearing was Judge David Carter, Mayor Karen Bass, City Council President, LA County Board of Supervisors Chair Catherine Barger, and City Comptroller Kenneth Mejia. The judge focused heavily on a recent audit he oversaw, which found major failures in tracking more than $2 billion of city homeless spending and holding contractors accountable.

[00:34:44] It comes after multiple audits over many years with similar findings, according to records Carter showed in court. Quote, this is a slow train wreck, Carter told top city and county elected officials. That audit looked at about $2.4 billion spent by the city over a four-year period ending last summer, which includes the first year and a half of Bass's administration.

[00:35:08] It found LAHSA has made it impossible to accurately track homeless spending, in large part by failing to collect accurate data on its vendors and to hold them accountable. This is the most insane part of this article. So we also discussed on that previous episode that Karen Bass has her own homelessness program called Inside Safe, which I guess she says, well, it's my program. It's under my purview.

[00:35:38] I started it. And this kind of started the whole fight is that the city controller, Kenneth Mejia, you know, the young guy on social media who's doing nice little videos in his Hawaiian shirt. I appreciate it. Thank you for being very careful. I mean, I like him or I like him. I like I like the fact that he's calling him out like, hey, this is what this is my job. And he's telling you what to look for. Bass told Carter at this hearing, she does not consent to the controller's office auditing programs

[00:36:07] under her office because it wouldn't be consistent with the charter. And she believes it's not right for one elected official to audit another. Bass added that there's much more for the city to do on homelessness. Quote, but it needs to be focused on the people and what their needs are and not on the administration. She said Carter wasn't satisfied. Quote, we pay your bills. Figure this out. And then he goes on to say he acknowledged efforts by the mayor and other elect officials who

[00:36:37] he said had inherited a mess from decades of failures to ensure accountability. But the responsibility to fix it all has fallen on them. He said, I am your worst nightmare. The judge told officials I can make your lives miserable. I was flabbergasted that Karen Bass goes in there and tells a federal judge. I don't think they have the right to look into what my programs are spending money on.

[00:37:05] How dare you think you have the right to audit my programs? 100% we need to request all the records for inside safe. Yeah, that might be the next that might be a good public records request. I did put in a public records request because we were talking about this. I put in a public records request with the San Diego County Board of Supervisors for all communications related to that migrant shelter that they opened and spent like $5 million on that they just recently shut down.

[00:37:37] And I put a little time. I think it was 2019 they started it. But we'll see. We'll see if they approve it. We have an experiment. I'm going to tease the viewers. We have an experiment we're going to try with these public records requests. So just stay tuned to what we're trying to do with these things. We're just waiting on the records. I put in one for all of the state funded travel for Commissioner Ricardo. Ricardo Lara. I should know his name by now.

[00:38:07] Since we've talked about him so much. Yeah, they don't necessarily get it to you really quickly. But we've been putting them out there. So once we get our first batch, we're going to do our experiment and show people something we've been thinking about. But we'll leave it at that. Yeah, I was flabbergasted that she literally told a federal judge that she doesn't think she has to be held accountable. And I'm glad the judge clapped back at her and was like, nope, we pay your bills. You get to tell us where you're spending this money.

[00:38:37] You don't get to just be like, nope, I don't know where the money went. It's you can't audit it. It just reeks of absolute corruption and insider favoritism. And, you know, where is this money going? If you don't want to if you're trying to combat the image of a homeless industrial complex where it's literally just set up so that people can make millions and millions of dollars.

[00:39:04] This is not the right way to do it is hiding this from the people. So any thoughts on that? Yeah. Well, and that's such an elitist attitude. I'm untouchable. You can't do this. And I think normally I would be kind of annoyed of like a federal judge stepping in and being like, we're taking this over because I'd be like, hey, small, small government, local government looks like keep it here.

[00:39:31] But at this point, these people are out of control and we've got to bring in the big guns with the big, big guys. Like, I don't, I don't mean anything like violent because this is, this has really gone off the complete deep end. And she, her, her city is facing what, what is the budget? She's just asked for $2 billion. And then she's like, no, you might, I talk about what it was bugging me.

[00:39:59] I didn't just get divorced in the middle of this episode. He like, I'm going to go to Sacramento and beg for $2 billion because I can't keep anything under control. But don't you dare even suggest that we audit some of our agencies, especially mine. Like this is untouchable, but also $2 billion, please. Like, whoa. Yeah.

[00:40:27] And I want to congratulate you really quick because we've now talked about the LAH, okay. I just stumbled on it. The LAHSA so many times that it actually just like rolled off your tongue smoothly. Yeah. I noticed that it just, it just rolled off. So, cause we've talked about it so much. I've, I've had so much practice. It's just natural now to talk about the LAHSA. Um, and the gobbledygook she put in there as she said, but it needs to be focused on the people and what their needs are, not on the administration.

[00:40:56] That is such political gobbledygook of like word salad to protect what you're doing. What? No, it's, it's absolutely about the administration because the administration is failing to provide for the needs of the people. That's the bottom line. And, and this argument, we've brought this up that at a certain point, you're almost like, it's better.

[00:41:21] We just stop spending altogether until we figure this out because so much money is being wasted on homelessness and it's not getting to the place it should, or it's not helping the causes it needs to do. And they're all saying, well, you can't be focused on the administration. It's about the needs of the people. No, no. It's absolutely about the administration because if we give you tax dollars and LA County foolishly

[00:41:48] just voted in this measure a 58 to 42%, just to remind you to raise sales tax, which is then going to go back into the coffers of LA homeless suspending. You should think, Hey, we're allegedly we're paying this increase in sales tax. It should go to help homelessness. I think the people kind of want to know it is going to homelessness. And if it's not being properly administered, people are going to get pissed and be like,

[00:42:17] why are we spending all this money on taxes? It's not going anywhere. Um, so it is this scandal. This, this is an interesting scandal. I think you might've said this on the episode. I think this goes way deeper and we've just scratched the surface of how bad LA homelessness spending is. I have a feeling there is so much corruption of money and where it's going to certain vendors

[00:42:43] that like, it's just gonna, if you start to really dig in and you get like an independent forensic audit team to look into this and report, it's probably going to make people in LA sick to see how much on a previous episode, we did discuss that their vendors, there's nothing consistent. Like one vendor could come in and be like this, I'm going to charge 50 K for this. And another vendor can be doing the same thing in another area. And they're like, I'm going to charge a hundred K.

[00:43:12] And they're just like, here you go. Here you go. So I'm willing to bet that the biggest drain on our finances in California is homeless spending. And of course it's not really going to homeless or it certainly hasn't solved anything or cured anything, but I'm willing to bet that that is our biggest money down the drain into somebody's pockets. Right. I will bet money on that. I will bet my extra increase in taxes. I don't live in LA County, but.

[00:43:43] Um, there was something I saw. Let me see if I could pull it up real quick. Uh, this was seven days ago. Let me pull this up. Cause this was a public policy Institute of California. They're also a good site of people are wonky like us. Uh, homelessness hits record high in California, although it jumps dramatically in the rest of the U S uh, total homelessness U S is 18.3, California 3.1.

[00:44:11] So it continued to go up. Um, of the nation, 771,000 people experiencing homelessness over 187,000 were in California. So a quarter of the entire country's homelessness is in California. Okay. I bet they don't even know how many homeless people are in California because they don't even know where the money went. How can they keep track of people?

[00:44:41] It, but I know there's like a legend ways, but I just don't even believe anything they say anymore. And I'm not trying to be all like, uh, for Los Angeles, Alameda and San Francisco counties, unsheltered homeless populations fell, but sheltered populations rose 14, 18 and 25% respectively. San Diego reported a rise in unsheltered 18% and a drop in sheltered. So good job, Todd Gloria.

[00:45:09] Sacramento reported the largest decrease and San Joaquin reported the largest increase. Oh, I wonder what happened there. They Sacramento pushed all their homelessness down into San Joaquin. So they just moved them around. It's just a little bit of transfer. Yeah. Yeah. 92.8% percentage change in San Joaquin. Wow. That is a huge, that is a huge change. Um, but yeah, that's, that I saw this this past week.

[00:45:39] So I thought that was pretty interesting, but, and people are trying to use the silver lining. Well, it slowed, it grew at a slower rate than most of the rest of the country. And I don't care. It still grew and we're dropping how many billions of dollars on it. LA is dropping how many billions of dollars in four years, they've dropped $2 billion on it and they haven't done anything. Um, it's gotten worse and now they're asking for more money. So there's, there's an issue.

[00:46:07] And I think homelessness, if we ever get to the bottom of homelessness, people would be sick to their stomach to figure out how much we've, the homeless industrial complex. That's why we call it that. They'd be sick to see how much money we've wasted. Sometimes I shared that tweet with you that I guess, uh, what's that? What's that San Francisco prison on the Island? They want to turn that into like a rehab facility. Oh no, it's San Joaquin. San Joaquin. Okay. Or San Quentin.

[00:46:37] San Joaquin is a kind of San Quentin. There's like a part of me that was kind of like, why don't we just put the homeless there? That's not a put down to the homeless people. I just, like, what are we even doing? Yeah. We're trying everything. Like Karen Bass is like, it's about the people. What, what people? Because the people paying the taxes are getting hurt. So what people is this about? Yeah. Well, it's the needs of her people that are making a ton of money on this.

[00:47:05] Like that, uh, CEO of LAHSA. See now it just rolls off the tongue. I feel like it's not LAHSA. I have a feeling it's not good. The last time we talk about LAHSA. Um, all right. Last story of the night. I saw this video on, uh, I think it was somebody sent it to me and I thought it was pretty interesting. So people on IG, if you follow me, I do read your messages. So I'm, you know, I do actually check all the messages.

[00:47:35] I read them. And then someone sent this video to me. I thought it was actually pretty interesting. It was Rob Lowe, his podcast in Adam Scott. I had to remember his name and I were talking this morning and going over the podcast show notes and I couldn't remember. I kept calling him Ben Wyatt. And I was like, it's not Ben Wyatt. Ben Wyatt. What's his name? I don't know if anyone knows who we're referencing. Uh, yeah, parks and rec. So, uh, in parks and rec, it was Rob Lowe and Adam Scott is Chris Traeger, Ben Wyatt.

[00:48:05] Fantastic show. One of my favorite bingeable shows. Uh, I will die on this hill. Parks and rec is way better than the office. I'm sorry. No, that's interesting. Hot take. I think parks and rec is way better in the office. I found the office about this. Everyone's going to fight in the chat about, and be like, I'm unfollowing you. I'm done with the show. You think the office isn't that good? I don't. I think it's depressing.

[00:48:29] I don't know why you go to an, if you go and you work at an office all day, I don't know why you'd want to come home and watch a show with people in an office and a depressing office at that. It's a paper office. Anyway, that's not what we're trying to talk about here. Okay. Do you get any else off your chest real fast? I just feel like we're all here for you, Brandon. I just, I, it always seems to be the office is always lauded as like the best comedy sitcom of all time. And I'm like, I just, I don't get it.

[00:49:00] It's some things are funny about it, but I just, I can't watch it. I literally, well, like last year rewatched it because when it first came out, I was like having back to back babies and I would catch glimpses of it because my husband was watching it. But I, I had time for that. So I was like, I missed so much and I just rewatched it last year and I, I laughed, but I was like, I did that. I don't need to do that again.

[00:49:29] You were like, I'm good. I don't need to watch it. I laughed and I probably won't laugh the second time. So. Okay. Anyway, Rob Lowe. Rob Lowe had Adam Scott on his show. So, um, I'm sorry at the chat. I had to refresh you and a whole bunch of people chatting in the chat. I'll get to these in a second. Um, I'll read these while we're watching the video.

[00:49:52] So we had him on his podcast and they were talking about Hollywood and, um, what's gone wrong with Hollywood and Rob Lowe doesn't really mince his words about it. So let's take a watch. Do you really? I do. Whereabouts? Dublin. I'm about to go to Cork for like a couple months. No way. What are you doing? Um, Cork is out in the like countryside. Oh, bro. Have you been there? Oh, I haven't been to Cork, but have you been to Ireland at all? I've been to Dublin.

[00:50:22] It's great. It's great. It's so fantastic. It's beautiful. That's interesting that you shoot the floor there. It's cheaper to bring a hundred American people. Wow. To Ireland than to walk across the lot. Right. Right. Past the sound stages and do it there. Crazy. Do you think if we shot Parks right now, we would be in Budapest? One hundred percent. We would be. We'd be in Budapest. We would be. It's so weird. There's nothing shoots in Los Angeles. Nothing. Nothing.

[00:50:49] I had a my the net, you know, my next show already done scripts, deals closed. Yeah. And they said, we're shooting this in New York. And I said, I'm not moving to New York to do this. And it went away. The show's done. I'm not doing it. Wow. It's like. No shit. Yeah. I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. It's just too expensive to shoot here. There are no tax credits. So like all those other places are offering 40 percent.

[00:51:19] Yeah. 40 percent. Oh, yeah. And then on top of that, there's other stuff that they do. Yeah. And then that's not even talking about the union stuff. That's just tax economics of it all. So it's it's it's it's criminal. What what what the California and L.A. have let happen. It's criminal. Everybody should be fired. It's a bummer. We have our office on Radford lot where we used to shoot parks. Yes. And it is quiet over there.

[00:51:49] Quiet. That place. When we were shooting our show. Oh, my God. Everything every stage was filled and working. And it's really weird. Super, super weird. I love that little lot. All right. So talking about how Hollywood is dying. And California taxes are killing it.

[00:52:14] If there's a theme of tonight's episode, there's California is dying and taxes are killing it. Yeah. Yeah. And they bring up a good point. So if you ever go to a movie and you see all the way till the end because you're someone who wants to see the post credits or something, you'll notice this in a lot of Marvel movies. You'll see like the Georgia stamp, the stamp of Georgia, the peach and stuff. Or you'll see a lot of like British Columbia. You'll see Australia.

[00:52:41] And I always sit there and I wonder, I'm like, what do these governments have to do with this movie? Like why is British Columbia or Australia involved with any of these movies? Well, it turns out a lot of these places have better tax credits, way better tax credits to come film your movies than California does. And Rob Lowe kind of said right there. The tax credits are way better in these places.

[00:53:10] The unions are obviously also a problem because California is a really bad problem with the unions. Every time there's a grievance, we see like a writer's strike or something like that. But it's gotten so bad that Hollywood is dying and our elected officials are trying to do as much as possible now to fix it. I think they kind of took for granted that Hollywood people in Hollywood just wouldn't go anywhere.

[00:53:36] But now it feels like to me, Atlanta and Georgia are like the new Hollywood. Like so much stuff is filmed in in those two places, especially here in America. It's like so I watched a CNBC video a little bit. It was a good background, but there's so many companies that have moved from L.A.

[00:54:00] specifically to Georgia that it's something like I think it was like 17 billion dollars in like their first couple years of doing this. That like that's how much money Georgia has been raking in just like obscene amounts. I probably got the number wrong, but it's like billions of dollars they've raked in just by offering this tax incentive. So, for example, and I'm going to I'm going to pull this up right now to give you an idea so we can cost compare the difference.

[00:54:30] So this is Georgia's website. If you go to Georgia USA there, Georgia dot org incentives and applications. This is their film incentive. Highlight to the program. 20 percent base transferable tax credit. Ten percent Georgia entertainment promotion uplift can be earned by including an embedded Georgia logo on improved projects. So that's that whole logo at the end of it where you see Georgia. OK, so you get an extra 10 percent just by slapping Georgia on there.

[00:55:00] That's it. All you have to do is slap Georgia at the end of your credits. You get 10 percent both resident and non-resident worker payrolls and FICA SUI FUI qualify for time worked in Georgia. So people who come to Georgia get the benefits in their paycheck, their paycheck. There's a lot more money because taxes are low in Georgia. Production expenditures must be made in Georgia from a Georgia vendor to qualify.

[00:55:24] Also, why so many prop companies, lighting companies, production studios are moving to Georgia because now you can buy from Georgia vendors. This is interesting because we'll talk about this in a second. No limits or caps on Georgia spend. There's no sunset clause. So there is no limit to how much these tax credits that Georgia will give every year. And there's there's no sunset clause.

[00:55:53] Raking in a ton of money. It's fair. Yeah. And there's no sunset clause. So this isn't like they put this into place and they're like, oh, it'll phase out in 2035. This is not going anywhere. This is permanent. No salary cap on individuals paid by 1099. That's a big thing because a lot of people are contracted who work on studios and productions. Post production of Georgia film movies and television project qualifies if post done in Georgia.

[00:56:22] So that's another big thing. If post production of Georgia film movies that you then do the post production in Georgia. So they're basically trying to figure out every angle they can get you. Development cost promotion marketing story rights and most fees do not qualify. And all you have to do. This is really interesting. So a company, the only thing they have to do is a $500,000 annual minimum expenditure threshold.

[00:56:48] For a lot of these production companies, that is nothing to spend $500,000 in a year. They probably spend $500,000 at some of these big companies in a month. So that is an incredibly low amount. So that's Georgia's tax incentive. And you can see why they are raking in the big bucks.

[00:57:16] So let's now hop over to California and see how they're trying to keep up. This is from Variety Magazine. California lawmakers introduced bills to enhance film and TV tax credit. Look who's there, Karen Bass. Yeah, I was going to say, I now have that kind of reaction to Lorena Gonzalez. Like, get her off the screen. Karen Bass.

[00:57:39] At a press conference on Wednesday, lawmakers announced two companion bills, AB 1138, SB 630, to make the state's program more competitive with other states. Several speakers noted that Georgia and New York have moved aggressively to sweeten their tax rebates in order to lower the industry. It goes on to say, quote, we have many people who are losing homes leaving the state, he said. They no longer believe there is a future in the entertainment industry.

[00:58:05] And that was Alex Aguilar, the business manager of Labor's local 724. So that's a union, like Rob Lowe was talking about. Governor Gavin Newsom said in October that he wanted to hike the program from $330 million annually to $750 million annually. At the time, he did not offer additional changes to the program. So about two minutes ago, we were talking about there is no cap in Georgia of how much tax credits they can give out.

[00:58:35] California, if they're fighting tooth and nail for this, don't even give a billion dollars in tax credits to one of their darling industries of Hollywood. I mean, you look at California, if you were to go to a gift shop in any touristy place of California and you saw a magnet of L.A., what would be on that magnet?

[00:59:04] The Hollywood sign. The Hollywood sign. Or California in general. I mean, it's just Hollywood. People think of Hollywood. They think of California. Vice versa. But they cap it at $750 million, meaning that there's only so many times people can apply and there's only so much they can give out. Because, you know, California's got to get their pound of flesh. Or in this case, a ton of flesh. $750,000? Million. $750 million. Okay. Annually. For the whole year. Okay.

[00:59:41] Rick Zebur, if you know that name sounds familiar, he's the guy who tried to take away the right to defend your home. And he pulled that bill recently. Said the details are still being worked out among industry stakeholders. In its current form, California's program offers a 20% tax credit to most productions. That's considerably less than most other places. In Georgia and New York, the rebate is 30%.

[01:00:04] British Columbia announced a move last fall to hike the province's credit for international productions from 28% to 36%. So, they are... Okay. The last thing. The bills are expected to pass through the legislature. But a press conference of Burr noted there has been some opposition in Sacramento from lawmakers who believe increasing tax credits for Hollywood takes away from other programs. Countering that argument. He said that the program has shown significant return on investment.

[01:00:31] Quote, we did the tax credits, but we didn't do it in a way that could keep up, Karen Bass said. Quote, other states rushed and built a tax credit system that is much more responsive to the industry. Okay. So, I guess we're incapable of getting that done? They haven't proposed... They don't even have a number. Like, they haven't even proposed, like, what their tax credit would be. And $750 million approved is, like... I don't know how you compete.

[01:01:01] Like, you have to do better than Georgia if you want to keep stuff here. Like, bottom line. Like, if you come in just a little under Georgia, they're still going to go to Georgia. Like, if Georgia is still 30% and you are like, oh, we moved it up to 25%, but it's still $750 million annually. It's like, okay, people are still going to go to Georgia because it's that much better. Or British Columbia, who's being more competitive.

[01:01:29] So, any thoughts on Hollywood dying because of California taxes? Everything's dying because of California taxes. We're dying. Everything's dying. Every industry is going down the tubes. I have to laugh because it's just... Every day we find out something so ridiculous. And, yeah, Hollywood used to bring in a lot of tourism.

[01:01:55] And now, if it's going to drop off the map, you know, people are going to... That's... Georgia's going to be the new Hollywood. Because... You had sent something over before the show about how, while they're fighting for these tax credits, Gavin Newsom also put back in place in his proposed budget a lot more... I guess, more tax credits for businesses, for small businesses and stuff like that, right?

[01:02:24] So, like, he's been... To replace tax revenue, he's putting in more tax... Or he's getting rid of tax credits for businesses, I should say. Yeah, I think it was like... He wants LA to have more that... Well, specifically, the Hollywood movie industry to have more tax credits. But has rolled back on business and corporation credits. And, you know, we always hear the corporations are the devil and all that. But... So, we need, like... How dare they make a profit?

[01:02:53] We need all their extra money in the form of taxes. But Hollywood doesn't deserve this. We need to give them the tax breaks. Right. Summary of what you sent over. That's not what he said. That was my summary. That was your summary. Newsom's budget proposes to prohibit businesses with annual revenue exceeding $1 million from deducting their net operating losses. Limiting business tax credits. Proposed change.

[01:03:18] The budget limits the use of business tax credits to $5 million for 2025, 26, and 27. So, while on one hand, they want to give away a ton of tax credits to Hollywood, the message to the rest of the businesses in California, if you're not Hollywood, is go pound sand. Because we need to get that sweet, sweet tax revenue. Let's talk about that real quick. I know we're kind of over time now. Because now I want to know what constitutes, like, the movie business tax credit.

[01:03:49] Because let's say that you are a catering company, small business, large business, whatever. You're a catering company and the movie set in Hollywood wants to use you for their craft services. Are you, do you now get a tax credit because you're now working with Hollywood? Or because you're a catering business that doesn't exclusively work for this movie set, movie company, production company, whatever.

[01:04:14] Then, like, I want, is this a Panera Bread fast food situation? I mean, sorry, that specifically what I meant about that was Panera Bread being exempt from the minimum wage increase. So, like, how does this work? That's an excellent question. I don't know if it's, I would imagine it's probably production companies, prop companies, stuff like that. That's a good question.

[01:04:43] Are you tangentially related to Hollywood? If you are someone who can prove most of your business comes from feeding Hollywood or being the caterer for Hollywood, like, are you considered a Hollywood business? I don't know. It seems like in places like Georgia, they're trying to literally think of everything. They're, like, bending over backwards and coming up with ways to give you a tax credit.

[01:05:10] They're, like, oh, if you just slap our logo on, here's 10%. Oh, if you do post-production in Georgia, well, there's more tax credits. It's, like, they're literally trying to figure out every single way to get you to come and film your movie or TV show in Georgia. I would imagine California is not going to be that generous because they're going to be upset that they're losing tax revenue in one form or the other by these tax credits.

[01:05:38] And that would lessen the amount of revenue they can spend on other pet projects. So, I can't imagine that tangentially related businesses will qualify. Yeah. Okay. So, there's this furniture company in LA somewhere, not the city of Los Angeles, but in the county. I want to say Glendora. It doesn't matter. It's called Larry St. John. Over the years, I have bought a lot of furniture there. They do custom furniture. Great quality.

[01:06:06] If anyone's shopping for furniture, but don't quote me on the city, but it's called Larry St. John. And they have this excellent showroom of all, you know, you order your couch and you customize all the pieces in the fabric and everything like that. Whatever. All furniture. And they are open to the public. Anyone can come in and shop the furniture. And they also do a ton of stuff for movie sets. And they have, like, it's a funny furniture store if anyone has ever been there.

[01:06:36] They have it almost set up, like, different movie sets. Like, there's, like, a pirate room. Like, it's a whole experience and yet it's just furniture. It's fascinating. But they're, like, they have a bunch of stuff on the lot that you can, like, in their parking lot that you can look at because it's, like, this was, like, a, like, they set it up like this was this show or movie that they did. So they definitely generate a ton of income from movie productions, shows, all that.

[01:07:05] But they're open to the public and they, like, they probably, I wouldn't be surprised if it's, like, actually 50-50. It's just, like, regular people that come in and shop their furniture versus Hollywood is probably, like, a 50-50 split. I don't know that for a fact, but I'm just assuming. So just something like that. Like, where, what line do they fall under? Does Newsom even know what line they fall under? Does anyone in California even know? I feel like if we asked them, they would not know because.

[01:07:33] Yeah, that's why they introduced, and this is crazy to me, you can introduce placeholder bills. Like, the details aren't worked out. They're just, like, we have a concept of an idea of what this bill is going to be. And we'll add in the language later. It's, like, what? How does that? California's legislature is so weird, especially like gut and amend and stuff like that. The final point that I, the big summary point I want to make about this,

[01:08:03] it's always so fascinating to me that California recognizes but never admits that their policies are killing their industries. Like, they've realized, wow, we tax Hollywood way too much. That's why they're leaving, and that's why they're going to other states. And that's why their workers want to go there, too, because they get born in their paycheck.

[01:08:31] Everything about it is just, hey, the business climate in Georgia is way better than California. And that's the bottom line. And unless you're going to beat Georgia and do better on the tax credits and the payroll and all that stuff, you're never going to beat Georgia or British Columbia or Australia or Ireland or wherever they're talking about. Rob Lowe and Adam Scott were talking about. You're never going to do that. And it's almost like they get so close to understanding, wait a second.

[01:09:02] Maybe we've gone too far in the direction of taxing everything to death. Maybe we should just figure out how to stop taxing everybody. They never get there. And that's always fascinating to me that they're like, we're going to work on carving out all of these tax credits for this specific industry so we can save it. Why not just get rid of the whole tax scheme or reduce it greatly all over California and watch out? But you've admitted that by keeping business here,

[01:09:33] you've seen a return on investment by keeping businesses here and thriving. Why not work on keeping all businesses here and not tax everything to death? So there was a good example of this is Senate Bill 816, which was introduced by newly inducted state Senator Suzette Martinez Valderes.

[01:09:58] And she has proposed getting rid of the minimum franchise tax of $800. And I think it's for a certain amount. I feel like you said something about that. In the Calipublican caucus. I feel like... Yeah, I feel like that was the Calipublican idea was to get rid of. You're really familiar. Maybe the Calipublican caucus brought that up. Yeah, $800. If you don't know about this basic... I'll give you the rundown.

[01:10:28] If you're a business in California, any business outside of like a sole proprietor, if you're an LLC or a corporation, you have to pay $800 every single year, regardless of how much money. You could have lost all your money. You could be damn broke. California requires you pay $800. And if you're a struggling business to get going and you're just making ends meet, $800 is a lot of money.

[01:10:54] That money, I think that goes up as you make more money and if you're a bigger company. But the idea is, hey, just for the pleasure of doing business here in California, you have to pay $800 a year. And Senator Valdery has just basically said, why don't we just get rid of that? We can start with that. That's a good idea. But that's an example of like, why don't we just get rid of these taxes that hurt businesses across the board and see what happens?

[01:11:26] We'll see if they're able to save Hollywood. I think it might be already dead. Like I said, unless they beat Georgia, they're not going to beat Georgia because they want their tax revenues. They're going to continue to go into Georgia or Ireland or wherever else they need to go. Or Toronto. I don't know. Like Suits. Did you know Suits was filmed? What's that? It was filmed. Well, I said County Cork, Ireland. I pointed that out because I actually have like family, like extended family that lives there that's from there.

[01:11:56] Fun fact. Suits was filmed in Toronto. Suits was filmed in, yeah, in Canada. A lot of Marvel movies were filmed in Atlanta. That dumb show Fear the Walking Dead that I couldn't handle was filmed in Canada. It was supposed to take place in Los Angeles, but it was filmed in Canada. Stupid show. Too expensive. Too expensive to film here. All right. Any other final thoughts before we sign off for the night? Nah. Taxes are killing us.

[01:12:26] Bottom line. Taxes are killing us. If you just tuned in right now, in the last two minutes of the show, taxes are killing us. But you already know that. If you live in California, you already know that taxes are killing us. All right. You promised to get to the chat. So don't leave them hanging. Yeah. Somebody was saying it's inside stealing regarding the money we spent on homelessness. They spent $40 plus billion on homelessness and it's worse. Can anyone say who stole the money? Absolutely.

[01:12:58] Brett said, I'm in Sacramento. They closed down a bunch of homeless parking lots per se and dropped them off the chart so it wouldn't track an overall aggregate. So I guess they're closing them down in Sacramento and pushing them down to San Joaquin. Yeah. Every time the politicians try to fix something, they just make it worse. Yes. That's a good way to end the show. That's a great way to end the show. They're just making it way worse.

[01:13:29] Slash and burn. We're now the fans of just tear it down and start all over again. I mean, we kind of were always there, but then we like officially came out. That's where we're at. Yeah. Yeah. Tear it all down and start all over again. All right. And on that note, make sure you like, share, subscribe, review, hit that notification bell. Helps people find us in the algorithm, all that stuff.

[01:13:53] And the best thing that you can do to support the show that is 100% free is share it with somebody else. And so on that, we will see you on the next one. Later. Thank you for listening to another episode of California Underground.

[01:14:20] If you like what you heard, remember to subscribe, like, and review it. And follow California Underground on social media for updates as to when new episodes are available.