Latest / Salem Podcast Network / Main Street Matters - California’s $425 Billion Fraud Scandal? Herb Morgan Exposes Waste, AI Audits & Radical Transparency

Transcript

Main Street Matters - California’s $425 Billion Fraud Scandal? Herb Morgan Exposes Waste, AI Audits & Radical Transparency · Salem Podcast Network

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: America is home to thirty three million small businesses, the
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: beating heart of communities across the country, and.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Prove that the American dream is still alive.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: This is a show about those dreamers and doers and
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: the communities they serve, their real life stories, their spriddles
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: and successes.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Their grit, determination and passion, and the people who fight
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: to keep their American dream alive.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: I'm Alfred Ortiz.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: I'my Lane Parker, and it's time for another episode of
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: main Street Matters, America's small business megaphone.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: I'my Lane Parker with the Job Creators Network, and today
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: joining us is Herb Morgan. He is a candidate for
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: California State Controller, an investment professional, and a leading advocate
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: for government transparency and accountability. Herb has built his campaign
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: around a simple but powerful idea. Taxpayers deserve to know
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: exactly how their money is being spent, and government officials
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: should be held to the same transparency standards that they
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: expect from the private sector.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Herb, thanks so much for joining us.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Thank you for the invitation. It's a pleasure to be here.
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: Well, give us a little bit about your backgrounds, your story,
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: and what made you decide to enter this race in California.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Well, the only place I could enter is California. It's
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: where I've lived my whole life. So I have spent
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: the last forty years in the world of finance. I started,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: sold a few companies, bought and sold, sat on a
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: number of corporate boards and directors over the years, audit committees,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: small business, medium sized business. My last episode was I
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: founded a company in two thousand and four, was an
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: investment management business, and I had the good fortune to
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: sell that to a major Wall Street firm in twenty seventeen,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: joined that firm as chief investment officer, and retired in
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: March of this year. March of twenty twenty six. I
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: just still have a lot of energy, a lot of passion,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: a lot of experience for service. So rather than trying
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: to play pickleball and golf every day, I decided it
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: would be good to look for a way to sort
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: of give back. And California is in particularly great need
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: of assistance when it comes to finance. Large scale financial
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: operations here are not run very well. We could talk
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: in detail about it, and I thought, what a great
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: opportunity to completely shift gears to an industry I knew.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know much, but I knew nothing about at
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: the time, and we're just having a wonderful time doing it.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Reception has been fantastic.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: For those people who may not understand the importance of
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: the state controller, tell us why that's so important.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Well, in California, we have eight constitutional executive offices. Everybody's
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: familiar with, let's say the governor, But the controller is
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: one of the financial positions along with the treasurer. The
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: treasurer is rather perfunctory, just manages the banking relationships, but
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: the Controller is endowed by our eighteen seventy nine Constitution
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: with the task of pre auditing all state expenditures. So,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: in other words, before money is released, the controller determines
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: if it's legal, if it's properly authorized, if it's going
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: to the right individuals, and ultimately the controller signs the
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: check or the wire request and authorizes it. Then, after
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: the money has been spent, the state Controller is responsible
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: for going back and verifying that the state got what
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: it spent money on. Were there measurable results or outcome outcomes.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: If we built a bridge, was the bridge completed on time,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: on budget? Were there financial shenanigans? Associated with the construction
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: of the bridge or the high speed rail or whatever.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: And the controller is not just responsible for state spending,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: but all of the state subsidiaries. We have fifty eight
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: counties in California, four hundred and eighty two cities, and
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: then all of their subsidiaries police departments, dog catchers, water boards,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: school districts, universities, high schools, colleges. All of the spending
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: goes through and is the responsibility of the state controller.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: And he or she has plenary authority to audit anything
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: or any one that touches state money. And this is
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: particularly interesting right now because you know the Vice President
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: has spent a lot of time in California, along with
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: first Assistant US Attorney Bill in Sale. There are very
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: serious allegations of fraud related to California is spending, of
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: which we could go for four hours. I don't think
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: you have that much time on but that is appropriate
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: right now. It is at top of mind, tip of
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: the spirit for all of Californians.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: So you had one of the strongest Republican performances in
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: the primary. What do you think voters are starting to
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: wake up to in terms of the spending. I mean
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: they clearly. They clearly believe that you're needed in this
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: position and that it's not being handled correctly.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Now, yeah, it's true, And it's not really an ideological position, right,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: It's not policy or politics. It's sort of an operational
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: competence position in my view. And Californians are not as
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: crazy as the rest of the country thinks we are.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: We tend to be on the margin somewhat liberal in
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: many respects, but when it comes to our finances and
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: our money, we're actually universally conservative. Buddy, in California, no
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: matter where you stand on the ideological spectrum, is in
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: favor of money being stolen. So we have a three
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: hundred and twenty billion dollar budget for the year that
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: ends this month June thirtieth. July first, we have a
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: new budget. It's three hundred and fifty five billion dollars.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: And when you look at the metrics for performance, and
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: I think you're in Florida, your metrics are really quite good.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: We're anywhere between forty fifth and fiftieth and really every deliverable.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: So whether it's the best place to retire, fiftieth, best
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: place to start your career, of fiftieth, business friendly climate, fiftieth,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: weird things, school bus safety forty eight, drunk driving accidents
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: forty nine, cost of living fiftieth. The list goes on
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: and on and on. So the citizens are saying, again,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: this is not ideology, this is hey, we're paying the
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: highest corporate excuse me, individual state income tax rates. We
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: have the highest tax absolute number per capita, of the
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: highest tax rates at low income. You're at nine and
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: a half percent when you're making seventy five grand in California.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: It's ridiculous. We have all of these things, and the
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: student and the citizens, regardless of where you are saying
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: that's not right. What can we do to drive efficiency,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: modernize government operations. Maybe we need a business executive to
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: come in and take a look at this as opposed
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: to continuously electing politicians who have moved up the ranks
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: and kissed the right rings, which is it's been twenty
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: years since we elected somebody with an are after their
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: name in California at statewide executive position. The math tells
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: me they're ready. And as you mentioned, we have the
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: strongest performance in the primary over three point two million votes,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: and yes we're still counting in California, so that numbers
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: should go up a little bit, but that's more myself
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: along with the Attorney general candidate, Michael Gates. We both
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: set a new record. He beat me by about one
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand. He keeps reminding me, but we did set
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: a new record for an R in California in a primary.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: We're super proud of that. And we had far more votes.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Each of us had far more votes than there were
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Republican ballots cast. And that tells you that our message
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: is not partisan, it's just operational.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: So I do not think the people of California are crazy,
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: but I do think and living in Florida obviously gives me,
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: i mean, just a completely different perspective on how state
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: government is run. Excuse me, but I do think that
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: there is a belief, regardless of party, that government can
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: do it better. That there's a there's a feeling that
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: government should be doing certain things that goes beyond what
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: say constituents here in Florida believe. And I'm just wondering,
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: as you go around the state and talk to people,
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: are you hearing any kind of change in my perception
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: of what I think people believe.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Because I don't think they're crazy.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: I just think they believe that government has a bigger
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: role than maybe folks here in Florida think.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Yes. So as they go around the state and I
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: talk to people that about that, I think the citizens
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: of California are compassionate and they want to They're okay
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: with paying for programs of compassion, whether that's education, healthcare, outreach, infrastructure.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: They're okay with that, And I think that kind of
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: crosses party. The other thing that crosses party is there's
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: this realization right now and my time on the road,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: they say to me, it didn't work. Okay, So we're
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: funding our programs with compassion three hundred and twenty billion
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: dollars this year, three fifty five next year. And the
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: homeless is the best examp. We spent twenty four billion
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: dollars and it's gotten worse. I live in San Diego.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: You could walk San Diego, Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: riverside Santa Cruz, any of these cities. You walk and
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: there's the feedinyl bend, there's camps everywhere. They're stepping in things.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: It's a mess. And so they're realizing that the delivery
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: mechanism we chose, which was money goes from the state
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: to the county, then the money goes from the county
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: to a nonprofit, and then the nonprofit is supposed to
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: be administering aid. And again we were okay helping people
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: like we're compassionate Californias are. But if the nonprofit is
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: it does not have proper financial controls. It is the
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: job of the state controller to prevent the fraud. I
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: am the one that wrote the paper on the fraud
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: four hundred and twenty five billion. We delivered that to
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: the president. The President announced the investigation into fraud has
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: begun and appointed Jade Vance. So this is like my
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: our fingers are all over this. But the problem was
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: we got so rich so fast in California because of technology.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: We've nearly doubled our state budget. It was one hundred
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: and eighty five billion seven years ago. We're three point
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: fifty five going in the next year. So that's just
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: a couple billions short of a double. Yet no service
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: or no metric has improved. We just pushed the money
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: out so fast, and if we had a competent state controller,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: he or she would have said, okay, if we give
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: you one hundred million dollars LASA. Here's what we want
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: in return. We want reports, we want at testations, we
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: want audits. And what the State Controller is on record
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: now is saying we don't have the resources to do
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: the audits. And I say that's absolutely incorrect. We more
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: than have enough resources to do it. We're the richest
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: state in the richest country in the history of the world.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: We have four point two trillion dollar economy. I can
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: do the audits. And what I propose is rather than
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: doing audits post event, meaning three years down the road,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: and then just barely choosing one or two entities to
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: spot audit, most people go decades with never being audited.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: We're going to use artificial intelligence models to conduct real
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: time audits daily as spending takes place. We're going to
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: build something called the Transparency war Room. All transactions will
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: be reported automatically and electronically on a daily basis into
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: the war room think NASA Control meets Wall Street Trading desk,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: and then we will flag items for human intervention. So
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: what I'm going to do is I'm going to deliver
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: massive economies of scale to the State Controller's office prevent
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: fraud in the first place. That's the job of the
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: state Controller. And then when we find fraud, I get
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: to walk down the hall to my new best friend,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: the Attorney General, and say, look what I found. Do
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: your thing, and your thing is prosecution. And the fact
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: that we're doing it will also prevent others from considering
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: doing it. It's prevented. It's the perfect solution. It's called
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: radical transparency because we're radical California.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: So why why do you think we're such a fight
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: against the transparency and uncovering the fraud that's going on,
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: not just in California but in other states like Minnesota.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's clear that there are real problems happening
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: that is wasting taxpayer dollars, and the deflection that goes
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: on from politicians deflecting away from what's happening in their
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: very own states and somehow always trying to deflect to
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: the whole, like just hate Trump, Just hate this guy.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: If you hate him enough, you won't see what we're doing.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: I mean, wouldn't any politician, regardless of party want to
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: show and speak in terms of what you were saying.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, you said you wrote the page.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: I didn't know that you wrote the paper that brought
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: the investigation to the state, and well, we all probably
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: believed that these organizations were not didn't have the constraints
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: on them with the amount of money that they were
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: getting through the state to do the things that yes,
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: your constituents believe in. I mean, there's real proof here.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: There's so much fire, you know, there's so much smoke
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: and fire together. People do believe there's really bad things
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: happening right now.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: They don't really believe it, but we now know it.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: We have definitive proof. So I launched a sub website
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: to my campaign website. So you got to Herb Morgan
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: dot com. You click on California Radical Transparency. And what
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: I did. The state was tasked with a transparency project
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: of twenty years ago. To provide this online access to
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: the citizens of the data. They launched a program called
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: open Fizzcow Fiscal but Fizzcow and it failed. They spend
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: a billion dollars. It didn't work. I took eight days,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: spent fifteen hundred dollars on claud Research credits. We rebuilt
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: the entire system. We've relaunched it on my website Herb
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Morgan dot com. Click Radical Transparency, and not only do
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: we have all states spending for the last three cycles
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: live Spiritable. But there's an AI bot, it's called ask Herb.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: So if this is what we're going to implement, any
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: citizen should be able to call up their controller. Obviously,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: with forty million people, we can't do that, So we
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: create an AI version of me. But if you're a
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: citizen of California, you want to just go online and
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: you ask HERB a question about the finances anything, Herb
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: himself AI version will answer your question with facts and
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: data and without the political hyperbole. And you ask the question,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: how does it get to this point? And why don't
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: more people sort of recognize and why are people still
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: saying no, it's not happening. The theft isn't happening. And
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: I can tell you this. You know, when you go
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: to the movies, you know who the bad guys and
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: the good guys are. But in life, in business, in
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: corporate America or political America, the bad guy doesn't know
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: it's him because he thinks or she thinks they're the
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: good guys, right, And so they get involved in something
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: and they see somebody next to them doing something. Well,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: if they're giving a contract to their husband or wife,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: or I'm giving a contract, then it's okay for me
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: to give a contract to my fraternity brother from college, right,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: and if they're if I'm awarding the contract over here.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: And then my daughter comes in and gets a job
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: there that's paying her a couple hundred thousand a year,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: but she's not really showing up for then if everybody's
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: doing it must be okay. And then people begin to
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: justify their own immorality and their own bad behaviors that
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: they're doing. And then once you're in it, there's almost
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: no escape. But what I don't think anybody accounted for
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: who was in this and involved in this, in this
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: cycle of circling of money and recycling of money and
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: basically laundering of money, is they didn't account for artificial intelligence.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: So when I get in office in January, we are
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: not only going to be prospective about disclosing and analyzing
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: all state spending, but we're going to go back through
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: eight years, the past eight years of transactions in State
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: of California. We well, it's impossible to analyze that much data.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: It used to be impossible to analyze that much data
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: using AI and building search models and building analysis models.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: We can analyze unlimited amounts of data, not only on
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: a daily basis, but I can go back eight years.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: So we're going to be able to show So I
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: tell this to everybody. Look, if you don't believe there's
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: a problem, no problem, right, Let's let the data do
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: its thing. If you believe there's a problem, we might
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: show that. But you know, we had this thing where
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom announced two days ago he's being investigated for
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: criminal criminality. He and his wife are being investigated, and
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: he wanted to get out ahead of it and say
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: it's you know, which hunts Trump weaponizing the DJ Well,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: that investigation, by the way, began a long time ago
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: under the Biden administration. This is a continuance, so he
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: must be getting a little bit more nervous now. But
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: the point is, anybody whoever is opposes the audit, that's
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: the first place you need to go. Whether it's the
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: audit of the voter rolls. We could talk about voter roles,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: but here we are in California. What I'm simply saying
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: to everybody is we have the technology to end the debate.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Maybe I'm wrong, Maybe there wasn't four hundred and twenty
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: five billion. I feel really confident in the work I
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: did in my white paper. But if you don't think
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: I'm right, wouldn't it make sense to sort of open
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: the books for everyone to see, and then we'll just know,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: and then we could stop fighting about it and we
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: can move on to serving the citizens of the state
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: of California.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: So I was asked this a few days ago on
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: an on another show I was on it. I was
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: on a podcast and I was asked, why does it
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: seem like the the public outrage isn't there, whether it's
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: California or Missouri or some of these other states that
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: they're looking at. Why do you think it feels like
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: the public outrage isn't there? Is it the media not
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: covering it, covering it up?
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Like?
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: What do you think?
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: I mean?
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: I watched Let me just give you an example, and
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: it's outrage over over everything, even bad candidates for office,
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: like for instance, in Maine, the Democrat who just won
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: the primary there.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: Wow, I was asked.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: I was as a woman. I was asked, where's the
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: outrage over him? And and why isn't it happening? And
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: I said, because conservatives expect outrage to beat or organic
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: and authentic, and we don't Conservatives don't know how to
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: keep the story alive, and the left funds in.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: I will say, you know, I used to think people
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: would say, you know, fake news, fake news, and I
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: thought that was hyperbole until I got into this industry.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Because I have reached out to every major news organization
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: in California with my idea, and I have pitched them
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: and say, this is what I can do, this is
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: what I can build, this is how I can deliver efficiency.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: I have a plan for the Franchise Tax Board, which
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: really impacts small business owners that can't get service there.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: I have planned for the Unclaimed Property Division. And we
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: can go on and on and on and on and on,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: and I keep saying this over and over. Math is
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: not partisan. But these news asked outlets won't cover the story.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: I write editorials, I send them in, they won't publish
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: any of them. In fact, this is my favorite, the
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: San Francisco Chronicle. Right, I hope you're listening. I really
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: want your endorsement. San Francisco Chronicle. Look at me, and
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: I say to the San Francisco Chronicle, this is how
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I will modernize, an update and improve the services to
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: the State of California, now my opponent in the race.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: No financial background, zero none zilt. She was an administrative
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: assistant to Mayor Gavin Newsom, had her condo foreclosed, had
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: her business taken away because she failed to pay her
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: eight hundred dollars franchise tax fee to the State of California.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: The controller is the chairman of the franchise Tax Board.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: So the whole thing is sort of ultimately iron It's
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: irony wrapped in an enigma. Why is she in this
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: office with no discernible financial skills? And the Chronicle said,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: you're right about that, and it's okay, great, So in
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: their endorsement of her, they said my plan was too
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: ambitious and it couldn't be done. So that prompted me
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: to go do the plan, build it ahead of entering
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: audit the office. We launched it at California Radical Transparency
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: dot com or through my website or Morgan dot com.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: We launched all of this, and I've now written to
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: the San Francisco Chronicle and saying you said you would
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: consider endorsing me ish you felt I could do this, Well,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: I've done it, and I did it for fifteen hundred dollars,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: not a billion, which is what the state spent on
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: a failed fiscal disclosure system. And so I'm waiting for
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: the San Francisco Chronicle now, to be fair, the Sacramento
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: b which is McClatchy newsgroup. They are also left of
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: center paper. They did an honest interview and honest assessment
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: and they gave me a full throated, wholehearty endorsement. So
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: there are some honest news outlets, but not many. And
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: it's really hard to get any media coverage in California
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: unless you have a D after your name. They own the.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: Media, which is essentially what I said, and that's where
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: the outg is. And I watched that's really hard to
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: watch Dana Bash from CNN go from questioning why Democrats
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: were getting behind Graham, Platner and Maine in spite of
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: the fact of what's come out on him, because as
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: a woman, she was reacting as I did, and then
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: over time I watched the story change. Her narrative change
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: went to from this is terrible, and don't we have
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: standards to well? Our standards are we must stop. We
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: must stop the Trump administration from doing what they're doing.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: And the only way to do it is if he wins,
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: and so that's become the narrative. It's like, okay, well
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: just look away from that, and so we missed the
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: outrage of what's happening. And one of the most famous
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: examples I can think of in California for what seems
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: like just thievery of taxpayer dollars is the high speed
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: rail project. It's a symbol of government inefficiency. And I'm
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: curious how many leaders, political leaders, or anybody who touched
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: that money has been investigated or gone to jail.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Nobody's gone to jail, nobody's got investigated. But here's what
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: we did as the controller candidate, not even the controller.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: This is the most there's the two most questioned items
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: by Californians our high speed rail and Los Angeles homeless spending.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Those are those are one and two top of the list,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: and then medical fraud is number three. Within my California
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Radical Transparency dot Com website, I created a separate section
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: just on high speed rail, so you can go any citizen.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: You don't have to be in California, if you have
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: a web browser at Florida, wherever you are, you can
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: go and you can get detailed questions answered about who
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: got the contracts, what did they do, were they're deliverables,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: how much track has been laid, you know, is the
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: right of way established except et cetera. We're going deep
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: on that, very very very deep on on the website.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I love the things that you're saying,
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: and I'm glad that you're getting Californians to hear what
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: you're saying. And I'll go back to what I said.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: I don't think Californians are crazy, but now I understand
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: they want to invest in the social programs. They just
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: want the money to be used correctly. So in spite
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: of the fact, despite the fact I always I always, uh,
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: I always mess that up on which one I'm supposed
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: to use to spider inspec.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: You go for it. I get. I know you're mean
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: that you have an.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: R after your name. I agree with you that math
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: is not partisan. I love that saying. I always say
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: two plus you will always equal before. But I like
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: you're saying better. I think that people still want to
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: spend the money on the high speed rail, on solving
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: the homelessness, on funding health care for people who can't
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: afford it. But they do want to know in California
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: that their money isn't being wasted and squandered away. And
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: I think that's the message that I'm hearing from you
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: that's probably resonating with Californians.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: That is, that is exactly the message that is resonating.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: It is Mathe is not partisan. This is this is
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: a partisan office under our constitution. So I have to
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: say R or D. But I gave an interview a
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago to the San Francisco Examiner also
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: you know, center left publication. The interviewer was by his credit,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: quite fair, but at the end he hit me with
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: that singer, you know. He said, oh, you are a R.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: So how can people believe you? You're for this and
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: mass deportations and you're of course racist and no, no, no no,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: And I said, hold on. He said, why are you not?
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Why did you not change? Why did you not go
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: independent or a Democrat or something like that. I said, look,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: I've been in R my whole life. My parents were ours.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: My mother was an R because she was marching for
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: civil rights. Okay, and he goes, what And I said, look,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: I'm an R because Lincoln won the war, because the
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: long history of my party is the right, whether it's
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: the whether it was the anti slavery which was the
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: beginning of the Republican Party, whether it was the fourteenth
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution by the radical Republicans.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Now you know why I chose the word radical transparency.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Whether it was the Republican Party who was the initial
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: advocate for women's suffrage, whether it was Eisenhower who sent
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: the troops into Arkansas, whether it was the Republicans who
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: started the whole entire civil rights movement. Right, I've been
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: an investor of my whole life, and I always looked
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: what they say, look at the long term, not the
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: short term. You know, I'm a Catholic. In my church.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Was the Catholic Church always perfect? God? No, we had
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: the Inquisition, yet other bad things or things I disagree with,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: I didn't stop being a Catholic. So I'm not going
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: to stop being a Republican. If maybe there's something going
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: on right now by one person or one area that
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: I think, man, I do it a little differently. In
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: this office. The State Controller is about capability, experience, competence.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: I'm going to deliver results your businesses that need to call.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: You do business in California, you got a file a
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: return here, as you know, and trying to get through
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: to the Franchise Tax Board for a simple question to
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: get a simple answer. They will only give you their
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: first name, not a last name. That will change. Taxpayers
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: will be customers. They will be assigned case officers. They
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: will have the case officers full name, they will have
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: the case officer's directile phone number, and they will have
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: the case officers email. And the case officers will be
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: measured on their ability to deliver service to our customers,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: not our subjects. If you pay taxes to the state
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: of Californy, which businesses all over the world do, you
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: will be given service by my team. That's that's not partisan,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: that's not political, that's just driving efficiency. I had this
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: happened to me my twenty twenty three tax return. I
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: got to notice from the Franchise Tax Board you owe
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: us more money. And I called my accountant and said, no, no, no,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: they're making mistake. I call I'll take care a typical thing,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: three or four thousand dollars. So the countant gets involved
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: and he's doing this. It took him seven phone calls
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: six times somebody said they okay, yes, we agree, we'll
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: fix it. They never fixed it. They hung up. Well,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: you can't call that person back, and so each time
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: it's an hour plus to get on a hold. You
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: have to re explain the entire problem. And then ultimately
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: they're sending me letters. Now we're going to take over
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: your assets. We're going to see these things for thirty
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: four hundred dollars. Finally, my accountant says, just pay it,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: pay pay all the interests, pay all the penalties, just
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: take care of it. Eventually the system will catch up.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: And that's what I had to do. And then about
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: two weeks ago I got check in the mail for
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: my twenty twenty two or twenty twenty three return saying yeah,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: you're right, we did it wrong, and it caught up
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: and I got the money back. That has to change.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: That will change when I run the state Controller's office.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they either say you have time or money, right,
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: can't you have both of the same time. You can't
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: have both, that's impossible. Well, I love what you're saying.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: I love radical transparency. I think that the uh obviously
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: the voters of California. Your message is resonating with them.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: I think that message would resonate with taxpayers across the country.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: So you know, good luck to you and I wish
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: you luck in your campaign. Tell everyone where they can
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: follow you and learn more about your campaign.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Well, thanks for that opportunity. It's been a pleasure being
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: your guest. I am on every social media platform at
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: HERB the number four you can see at the bottom
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: the screen at herb for controller. The other thing, I
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: need your help and I need you to comment on
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: the social media repost it, retweet it. The comments help
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: the algorithm which gets me greater exposure for this idea,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: this common decent idea. And if you're able, go to
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Herb Morgan dot com make a contribution to this campaign.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: My job in the campaign is to be the spokesperson,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: to be the implementer. I've also made a substantial contribution,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: but it only works if many, many, many people are
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: part of this movement and this initiative to modernize, update
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: and deliver proper government services to the citizens of California.
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: Well, Herb, thanks so much for joining us. Radical transparency
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: something not only California needs, but the rest of this
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: country needs for sure. So I wish you all the
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: Luck candidate for California State Controller. Thanks so much for
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: joining us and sharing your with us, and thank you
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: all for taking the time to listen to Main Street Matters.
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: Main Street Matters is part of the Salem Podcast Network.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: New episodes debut every Wednesday and Friday. You can subscribe
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: to the show wherever you get your podcasts from, and
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: we will be back soon with another episode. Bye for now.