Episode 243 - Why Is California Broke?

[00:00:00] If you're a California conservative, a libertarian, a moderate Democrat, believe in common sense,

[00:00:11] or just the same person, this is the political podcast for you.

[00:00:15] It's the New Hampshire primary. It's about 10 point split right now. So it looks like he's going to walk away with this no problem. Nikki Haley said she's not dropping out and we'll continue on. So here we have it. I think the primary is basically over at this

[00:01:42] point. Nikki Haley has really no path forward. We're showing it was Republican. So it was mostly Democrats and independents who were voting against Trump for Nikki Haley. So I bet when you get to I don't know what the

[00:03:02] Process is in in South Carolina. I don't know if it's strictly Republican

[00:04:05] of it was in a positive, like at first the community looked down on us but then you know we were apart of the community we were very accepted and loved but it does just feel desperate to me to

[00:04:09] pull the race card with last minute like you totally lost you know in the last one and now

[00:04:16] you're like right but like it's just felt desperate and then I don't like all her references of high

[00:04:21] heels and she's a quitter anyway she quit when she was governor she quit when she was the ambassador

[00:05:27] Biden. This was sort of a theory cobbled together by things that I heard, but my theory was Nikki Haley will be the replacement for Joe Biden because she'll play ball with the establishment.

[00:05:32] She'll make the military industrial complex happy. Everyone in DC will continue to make

[00:05:38] money. They'll let her have like her cute little like tax cut, which is technically like

[00:05:43] tax shifting because most Republican tax cut bills are actually not tax cutting. They're and elections are. Yeah, that's that's basically, that's basically how they'll spin it and be like, well, if elections are stolen, why did Nikki Haley beat Joe Biden? Trump couldn't beat Joe Biden. So clearly Nikki Haley is the better candidate. She'll never get to find that out though, because I think she'll be long gone before then. But yeah, so that was my conspiracy theory.

[00:07:03] I don't think it's going to happen anymore. I feel bad for the California GOP, it kind of gets left out in the rain. They're not going to make any money. You know, asking $600 a plate or $1,000 a plate to go see Donald Trump or something. He's not going to show up. Why would he care about showing up now?

[00:08:21] He's won the primary.

[00:08:22] So I should have been a out something because Trump will likely. I mean, it just shows poll after poll. He's he's trouncing Biden in all the swing states. Do I think he gets in? There's still a possibility. I think he's still geared up and ready to kind of slide in there if the Democratic Party,

[00:09:42] you know, twists his arm and he like, reluctantly steps up because duty called or whatever. I also don't think a lot of people really want to go back to that era. So I would rule out the Michelle Obama thing. Gavin Newsom is just kind of, he's hanging out there. He's kind of just doing his thing. He's still trying to campaign nationally. He made a whole big point of dancing on Ron DeSantis' campaign grave because it's all

[00:11:02] over.

[00:11:04] So we'll see what he does. it, the Haley, she could walk on a stage in five and heels. Why I didn't even walk on a stage. So yeah, that's true. Um, so credit where credit is due for Nikki Haley. Um, they had a Senate debate last night. I want to get your thoughts real quick. I didn't watch it. I forgot it was even on. Um, so you would watch it.

[00:12:21] Why don't you give me your thoughts and run down?

[00:12:24] I thought it would be quick because I kind of tuned out at a certain point.

[00:13:28] Garvey was an embarrassment to the GOP. He either just didn't know what he was talking about or just, I mean, I get it. He's not a politician. He's probably not used to being on stage in a setting

[00:13:35] like that. But he would talk really slow and then he would have long pauses. And I'm like, does he

[00:13:42] not know what he's going to say? Is he trying or whatever. He's one of the good ones. Hey, I'm like Ashley Zavala. Zavala, she's a capital reporter.

[00:15:01] There's some that are really good.

[00:15:03] So it was kind of just, it felt shocking, not shocking And then they all kind of started shouting at Garvey and then he's not answering exactly. And so then Alex brings it back to, well, you have said that you will support the nominee. It's Trump. Are you going to support Trump? Is that like, and they finally moved on from it, but.

[00:16:24] Yeah, well, it's, you know, four against one. So it's amazing.

[00:16:25] He's even on that debate stage.

[00:16:27] So.

[00:16:28] I don't like that here. and said we are facing a $68 billion deficit. Now the numbers have been disputed. Obviously Gavin Newsom has come out and disputed and said, well, it's not 68 billion, maybe it's 30 billion. But either way, we went from $100 billion surplus that Gavin Newsom was running all over the country bragging about to now a $68 billion deficit, which looks horrible.

[00:18:48] Severe winter storms prompted the federal government to delay the income tax filing deadline for most Californians from April until November in the state followed suit, giving an incomplete picture when legislators and the governor crafted the budget this summer.

[00:18:52] It already accounted for a $30 billion deficit after two years of record surplus as like, what are we going to do with it? Like spend it. And they, you know, they didn't want to save it. Is it do they have to spend it or, or it goes away?

[00:20:20] Or were they allowed to save it. Like you should activate it. So why not? It's our money. They're just giving it back to us.

[00:21:40] So yeah, I, but I think that's interesting that was probably one thing that buoyed it. But the interesting thing about why the budget is like this is volatility. So what that means, okay, I'm going to try and break this down.

[00:23:00] The reason California goes up and down with our billions of dollars, they end up having to pay a lot of this into taxes into California, which helps their treasuries. However, there hasn't been a lot of activity. Silicon Valley is kind of drying up a little bit. There's a lot of companies that

[00:24:23] are moving out. We all know that Tesla moved out of a sudden they're like in debt and it feels like that's what California did. It just feels like California won the lottery but there's just no accountability up there and like seems like pretty much the majority of them are just idiots with how they're spending and they were like all right we're just gonna do all the things and oops we're in debt now.

[00:25:41] That's how it feels to me. Yeah it feels like see all this money and they're like, well, there's plenty of money for everybody to get their little pet project off the ground. So why can't I say, okay, well, I'm going to put my bill in. I'm going to say it's going to spend about this much money. And it's going to be there when I get there.

[00:27:01] Like one law that they passed, like what the heck's going on here Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do- So yeah, exactly to your point of when Democrats see $97 billion in surplus, they all line up all their supporters, all the unions and all the lobbyists line up and go, I want to get my piece of the state. I mean some highlights. Let me just follow this up. A lot of this, again, a lot of this was repeats of stuff we said.

[00:31:01] Quote, right after the pandemic, the investments of the wealthiest Californians, and there's a little sign that will change. So again, because of Prop 13, thankfully, it's kind of forced

[00:32:20] California into this kind of boom-in-boss cycle where they have to rely on I think as far as I remember. So, okay, so we got the landscape of like why California goes through this boom and bust cycle. Now the question is how are we going to solve it?

[00:33:42] Oh, do we have to figure that out?

[00:35:02] Thankfully, we don't have to figure it out money, if you think this is bad, I found this article from the California Policy Center. Love these guys. Lance Christian saying he was a guest and friend of the show writes here. This was as of 2022 so it's probably gone up is about 1.6 trillion 1.6 trillion or about half the state's GDP yeah so 1.6 trillion 40 thousand dollars per capita and that's for all the the

[00:36:23] state and the local districts that's why the title of this episode

[00:37:40] was not just, Hey, we have a $68 billion over the past 10 years is not enough money on homelessness and that it's increased by 40 percent that it actually hasn't gone down homelessness. They haven't cured or gotten close to figuring out homelessness in California. But you're right. This is the problem with California is that there is no problem that California

[00:39:01] Democrats don't see without solving by spending more money and raising taxes to spend more money.

[00:40:03] Now you have a $68 billion deficit. So what the heck happened?

[00:40:04] How is this proper management?

[00:40:06] How can we trust you to run our country if we give you a surplus and then you spend

[00:40:10] it all?

[00:40:11] So I think that's the bigger picture of why this is catching so much news.

[00:40:16] I mean, California is important.

[00:40:17] We're one of the biggest states.

[00:40:18] But I think because Gavin Newsom is running for president, that is why it's just picking

[00:40:24] up so much steam.

[00:40:25] And people are going to use this. I forget now I'm just as I'm kind of blanking out what this was. He's trying to compare like apples and oranges. And he's like, well, technically, like, you know, when you look at like California's income taxes and then you look at like what people in Florida pay, it's it's actually we come out a little bit better because the property tax in Florida is higher than the property tax here in California.

[00:41:42] And that's, you know, we have one of the best property taxes that we keep

[00:41:45] low for our Californians.

[00:42:47] Um, I, I think we were talking to someone, we know some people, we have some family in Arizona and we were like, Oh, you know, we just had to pay our registrations for like

[00:42:52] both of our cars.

[00:42:53] And it was like, it was, it was a ridiculous amount.

[00:42:56] It was like $1,200 for two cars.

[00:42:58] And they almost like choked and they were like, I'm sorry, how much did you spend for,

[00:43:04] for car registration?

[00:43:05] Just the hour. We've talked a lot about the actual reasons

[00:44:20] why there's a budget deficit.

[00:44:23] Do you wanna hear the one reason

[00:44:26] some people are saying there's actually a budget deficit? such as plenata and pajaro, bonus points if you know where those are in California. Capitola was hit with a bomb cyclone that all but destroyed the pier. Tylari Lake reappeared in the central valley, submerging homes and crops and revealing the fragility of the expensive levy, the damage of that extreme weather cost $4.6 billion and

[00:45:41] took 22 lives according to the about on a serious note. If you think nerds like us are the only people who care about this budget deficit, you would be mistaken. Because a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies co-sponsor with the Los Angeles Times did a poll

[00:47:00] and it said that 57% of California voters

[00:47:03] found this to be extremely serious problem.

[00:48:03] California, it's not worth it. Just forget California and ban in California.

[00:48:20] I say nay because read the tea leaves here of this poll. It says 51% of the up in Sacramento and figures out what they're going to spend money on. I guess, yeah, it's just the Republican brand, it's so tarnished in California, there's not much you can really do about it. Also, I didn't know that 47% of Californians actually disapprove of Gavin Newsom.

[00:51:03] That's for a guy who is gonna run for president to have half of your state that's deep blue,

[00:51:05] not liking you, it's not surprising your view. Yeah, you're still on your parents insurance and living in their basement. Like, it's not surprising. You don't really understand how the real world works and why people would push back on this. So we're coming up on the hour. I think we covered a lot of ground. Um, what are your, you have any final thoughts about the budget deficit before we log off?

[00:52:24] Yeah.

[00:52:25] Yeah.

[00:52:26] Um, yeah. deficit and then all those things can't be paid for. So we'll see, we'll see how they go about this and what they cut. This is going to be a long tough negotiation from here until June, right? June is when the budget has to be finalized. Yeah, they call Trump like right away. So yeah, they call Trump like when I checked before I hopped on. So it was like overall ready.

[00:54:45] changing local races at state legislatures and county races and stuff like that, but

[00:54:49] it's not sexy enough. People don't really care about that. They care about presidential and congressional races. So anyway, on that note, yeah, budget deficit. Hopefully we'll keep an eye on it.

[00:54:58] Maybe we'll do a follow up in June when they actually come out with the new budget and we can kind of