April 23, 2025 • 35 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 2 (04/23) - CA State Assemblyman Carl DeMaio fills in for John. Carl breaks down how taxpayer dollars are being funneled into luxury-priced housing projects with no real results — including $600,000 per unit price tags. He explains why most homeless in California are chronically homeless, how laws have incentivized the crisis, and why developers and politicians are cashing in. Plus, Carl shares how requiring voter ID could restore integrity to our elections, and columnist Susan Shelley joins to expose more failures in California’s homelessness response.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't. I am six forty. You're listening to the John
Cobel podcast on the iHeartRadio apps.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
This is Carl Demayo filling in for John Cobot. We
are talking about all of the problems that plague us
in California, in Southern California in particular, and why why.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Are things so bad? But also what can we do
about it?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
So I always say I don't want to just increase
your blood pressure by giving you the bad news. I
want to give you the truth. You deserve the truth
because it's frustrating seeing things get really bad and you're
being told, well, if you raise your taxes and you
regulate this and give us your freedom on.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
That, well solve your problems.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Because my name is slick politician also known as Gavin Newsom. Yeah,
so the slick politicians are saying, oh, they've got it
in the bag, don't worry about it, and always always
involves more regulation, higher taxes, and less freedom. Funny, funny
that single solution, everything can be solved with higher taxes,
(01:04):
just give us part your money and everything will be perfect.
Well that's not been working out, And so we expose
why things are so bad.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
But then we tell you what you can do about it.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Again, The first and most important thing we can do
is we have to fix our broken political system, and
that requires California voter ID. We need a million signatures.
Go on the website voter idpetition dot org voter idpetition
dot org.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
And sign up.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
If you don't do it, and if you don't, share
that website, because I need you not just to sign up,
I need you to share it with all your friends,
get them to sign up voter idpetition dot org. If
you don't do it, I can't do it. Like I
don't have a magic wand I'm a volunteer just like
anyone else. I make not a single penny off of
my political advocacy. I'm doing this as a passion project
(01:57):
because I am so sick of the way our state
has been running to the ground and we have a
bunch of liars, cheats and thieves that are profiting off
of it, and we need to fix the political system.
It requires voter ideas the starting point. Voteridpetition dot org.
Let's talk about homelessness. This is such a scam and
(02:19):
it's why I'm so grateful that my good friend Bill
is Saley, who's now the US Attorney for Southern California.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
In the Trump administration.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
He is now investigating both criminal and civil malfeasance as
it relates to California homeless funding. So they've spent twenty
four billion dollars on homelessness since Gaven Newsom was sworn
in as governor, twenty four billion. No state has spent
more money on homelessness per capita, per homeless person, per
(02:51):
square inch of fecal lined sidewalks in California. No state
has spent more taxpayer money by every measurement than California
on homelessness, and no state has had a bigger increase
than California. While the rest of the country since twenty
ten has seen a decline of homelessness, that's double digits,
(03:14):
eighteen percent decline since twenty ten in homelessness nationwide, California
has had a massive increase. It is triple digit increase
in Los Angeles, in San Diego, in San Francisco, the
urban areas. We have twelve percent of the nation's population,
(03:35):
but we have fifty five percent of the nation's un
sheltered homeless. Twelve percent of the population of the nation,
but fifty five percent of the homeless problem. Yet we're
spending more money than any other state. Why because in
other states, they're all the other forty nine states, they
(03:59):
deal with homelessness as a law enforcement issue because it is.
Let me, let me explain why are people homeless, and
people will say, correl.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
It's because of the price of housing. That's why people
are homeless.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
It's so expensive, no doubt, it's expensive to live in California.
But recognize that housing prices. Rents and housing prices nationwide
have gone up by some like sixty percent nationwide since
twenty ten, but homelessness has gone down by double digits.
So there is no causality or correlation between an increase
(04:34):
in the property prices housing prices and homelessness. There's no causation.
There's no correlation, zero, zip, nada. Now, when prices get
more expensive, people have to kind of shack up together,
and people unfortunately have to do that in California, or
they have to squad on someone's property.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
But no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Rising rents not an issue with homelessness. What is homeless?
People are not just struggling with rent. They don't have
a job, they can't keep a job. You give them
five hundred dollars, and you say, hey, I'm gonna give
you five hundred dollars a month cash, and I'm gonna
(05:19):
rent you an apartment for five hundred dollars a month.
They're not gonna take that five hundred dollars and pay rent.
You know we're gonna put that five hundred dollars. They're
gonna put it up their nose, down their throat, or
in their vein. Drug addiction, mental health. Those are the
two drivers of homelessness, because homeless people are broken people.
(05:40):
I don't like to say it that way, but that's
kind of as blunt as I can get. Now, there's
about twenty percent of homeless that are what we call
economically displaced. These are people who maybe are behind on
their bills, got evicted, or more than anything else, these
are people who get in a fight and get thrown
out of their current living situation, and so they're out
on the streets and they don't have a job and
(06:01):
theyn't have means. Now, they can get a job and
usually they find a place to stay, but sometimes they're
on the streets in their car. They tend to be
people who are what we call upper class homeless. They
have a car, they have a gym membership, they shower
at the gym. These twenty percent, yes we have an
issue with let's figure out how to address that. But
(06:22):
eighty percent of homeless are what we call chronic homeless.
They are broken people. Can I get a little bit
more personal? Yeah, I'm looking at you. I'm about to
say something. I'm about to give you an example that's
probably going to hit close to home. All of us
have a family member at some point in our life
(06:45):
who is a little nutty, is mentally ill, bipolar, borderline personality,
major depression, Maybe they're on drugs, maybe they engage in
substance abuse. Typically it's dual diagnose both. When you had
to deal with that family member, whether it was an aunt,
an uncle, a mom, a dad, a child, a brother,
(07:08):
a sister, you loved him.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Didn't you. You still love them no matter what they've
done to you.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
But at some point, when you begged them and you
fought with them, you got to a point where it
was hurting you so much, or damaging you so much,
negatively impacting you so much the behavior that you finally said,
I can't live with this anymore.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
You got to go.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Everyone who's homeless has had a family whose love was
not enough, whose love could not get them to deal
with the substance abuse or the mental health issue, and
they found the person finds himself on the street and
it's aspiral. So as I tell you, where love fails,
(07:56):
the law must intervene. The only way to get someone
to go into a treatment program, the only way to
get someone to follow their mental health therapy, take the medicine.
A lot of mental health is medicine based. Is de
mandated through the law.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
The carl it's their civil right. No no, no, no, no, no,
no no no.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
If someone were to suddenly stop breathing and we're choking
or passes out, government would come in the form of
an EMT, a paramedic and give them life saving therapy
mouth to mouth, and we wouldn't say you've deprived that
person of their human right. They have due process. You
can't force air in their lungs. Most people would say,
(08:43):
thank you for giving me CPR. We have to have
a process like all the other forty nine states, but
we don't have it here in California because the leftists
have contaminated our thinking on this issue where they basically
say it is a human right for someone to sit
on the sidewalk, and well, you know, just sit there
(09:04):
and do even worse than just sit there. And they
also say, becare we don't want to criminalize homelessness. I'm
telling you everyone who's homeless probably has violated the law.
They've got a wrap sheet already. We've got to use
law enforcement as the stick and the treatment as the
carrot in order to get people to break the cycle
(09:28):
of dependency and craziness and addiction and all sorts of
other demons to help them. But in California, we don't
do that. In California, we have something called Housing First,
and it sounds good, but it's really rotten and bad.
But the only people benefiting from Housing First are the
politicians and their campaign contributors. Coming up, I'll explain how
(09:52):
the money laundering scam is working for homeless funds being
transferred to politicians and their campaign contributors.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
You're listening to John Cobalt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Carl DeMaio sitting in for John Cobalt. We're talking about homelessness.
Twenty four billion dollars of California taxpayer money spent since
Gavin Newsom came to office. We have a massive set
of tax increases that have been put into place all
around California with the label homelessness solution, Solve homelessness just.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
For pennies on the dollar. We're just gonna raise a
tax here and there and we're gonna solve homelessness. It's
for the people, those poor people on the sidewalk. Do
something about it. Compassion, give us more of your money.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
They took all this money from you and people are
still on the street, and in fact it's worse than ever.
So where's the money gone. It's not going to substance
abuse or mental health treatment. No, no, no, it's not
even going to shelter beds, bunk beds, shelter beds. You
(11:02):
know where. It's going to a program called Housing First.
Housing First says in all of the taxpayer funded programs,
if you get any state tax money or local tax money,
the homeless provider is not allowed. They are barred by
law from requiring mental health or substance abuse issues to
(11:24):
be addressed. You're not allowed to require it. You can't
have rules for clean, sane and sober living. If you do,
you lose your state and local money boom. You're disqualified.
And so you have to literally say, hey, you can
do whatever you want. Here are the keys to your condo.
(11:45):
They don't want shelter beds, they don't even want transition
housing units, temporary housing units for people who are stabilized
and they're getting a job. They're just earning enough money
for their down payment or their security deposit their own apartment. No, no, no, no,
we're not allowing transition housing anymore. In fact, they take
transition housing and they make it permanent housing. They have
(12:06):
something called permanent support of housing. You what that is
defined as you give the homeless drug addict, the crazy
person a key to a taxpayer funded condo unit, and
you are on the hook now to pay for that
condo unit forever. And because we don't have enough of
(12:27):
these condo units, the money that we are spending on
homelessness is not going to treatment. It's not going to
shelters or shelter beds. You know where it's going. It's
going to rich developers who build condo towers at a
cost of a million dollars in some cases per unit.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
That's Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Nothing says affordable housing like a million dollars per unit.
This is felony, ineptitude, or criminal, which is not a
good look or it neither is acceptable. A million dollars
per unit. Sometimes we get a break. Sometimes it's only
(13:09):
six hundred thousand dollars per unit.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
For public housing. Here is a story a year ago
in Los Angeles. KTLA was talking about a new homeless shelter,
massive Skyrise Tower six hundred thousand dollars per unit.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Listening.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
This is an affordable housing building that will shelter people,
provide permanent homes for people who have experienced homelessness in
the past, permanent supportive housing for people people. As I mentioned,
two hundred and seventy eight apartments. This is near sixth
and San Pedro. They're furnished with central heat and air,
fully equipped kitchens, amenities like a gym, with wrap around
(13:50):
social services on site. This building replaces a parking lot
that was here before.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Who will live here?
Speaker 5 (13:56):
The developer says, low income residents with Section H about
the Section eight vouchers for federally subsidized housing and general
tenants pay thirty percent of their income with those vouchers
The project is a public private partnership. The developer tells
me it's one hundred and sixty million dollars. That's the
basic cost of the project and had a variety of
funding sources, including thirty two million dollars from Proposition HHH,
(14:21):
which you may recall, was approved by LA voters in
twenty sixteen, providing funding for homeless housing. There's also county
funding involved. It works out to just under six hundred
thousand dollars a unit.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Joke's on you take a hundred thousand dollars a unit. Oh,
I don't know what's worse.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Six hundred thousand dollars per quote affordable housing unit in
a condo tower which includes a gym, a gym you know,
fitness center, a rooftop deck.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
A pool, and no one's required to get a job.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
By the way, God for bid, we ask people to
get jobs in this state. We do have a plan
for dealing with homelessness at Reform California.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
I introduced the bill.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
In fact, tomorrow the Democrats are probably going to kill
my bill. It's going to a committee hearing. Instead of
housing first, I say we need a people first solution
deal with the root cause of homelessness, which is drug
addiction and mental health issue. Require that they get the treatment,
(15:36):
and in the meantime, don't give them a million dollar
condo unit, don't give them a six hundred thousand dollars unit.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Give them a bunk bed in a shelter.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
If our military service members can live in bunk style living,
I think a drug addict also can live in bunk
style living.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
And by the way, every day they should go to treatment.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
But then when they're done with treatment, they should go
and work for the public for free, picking up trash.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Along the freeways, in the beaches and the bays.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
We all have the cleanest damn community you will ever imagine.
I want them scrubbing sidewalks because you know, most of
the stuff on those sidewalks yep, caused by homeless people
left there, all sorts of bodily fluids and material. Clean
up the sidewalks, pick up the trash because we're giving
(16:29):
you three square meals a day, we're doing the treatment program.
We're giving you housing at night in the bunk shelters,
and will let you earn a little keep and you
can save that money so that you can finally get
your own place.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Be coral. You can't require this. This is too hard nose,
it's too where's your compassion? You know what?
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I don't think enabling someone to die of a drug
overdose and a taxpayer funded taj Mahal tower is compatib
I think it's a lousy It's lousy to taxpayers, it's
lousy to the people who are homeless. It's failed. You
had your shot, you spent twenty four billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
You fail.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
But here's why they're going to continue to do it,
because they're not about solving homelessness. It's never been about
solving homelessness. The developers who get these contracts to do
the million dollar per unit condo towers, they give campaign
contributions to the politicians.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Yes, it always.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Comes back to what happens in the campaign funds of
the politicians. The projects have to be built with union labor.
The union dues are taken out of paychecks that goes
to politicians. But then of course the developers directly subsidize
do campaign contributions to political parties, to candidates, to ballot measures.
(17:57):
This is a money laundering scam, converting your taxpayer money
into campaign contributions. The politicians get a cut of the grift.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
All right.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Coming up, we're going to talk to Susan Shelley of
the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer's Association. They've been great partners with
Reform California in advocating for common sense. Plus more of
your talkback, comments and questions on the iHeartRadio app So
keep them coming.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI A
six forty.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
I love what we're doing today and what we're doing
all week.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
We're talking about the scandals, the scams, the problems, and
the broken political system here in California. What we all
can do to force change to happen. One of the
best things you can do is help us get a
million signatures on the voter ID initiative. Go to voter
id petition dot org, voteridpetition dot org, sign the petition
(18:57):
and get a bunch of your friends to sign up
at voter idpetition dot org. We need a million signatures
to put it on the ballot in twenty twenty six
and clean up our elections. And I think by cleaning
up our elections, we'll clean up our politics. We're talking
about twenty four billion dollars being spent on homelessness since
twenty eighteen when Governor Gavin Newsom took office. But our
(19:17):
homeless problem is worse than ever, up by triple digits
in some urban areas, double digits statewide. We have twelve
percent of the nation's population here in California, but we
have fifty five percent of the nation's unsheltered homeless population.
And we prohibit homeless providers from getting any state or
local money if they use any sort of requirements for
(19:41):
substance abuse or mental health treatment. Getting to the root
cause of homelessness in people. No, no, you can't fix
the problem. You just got to house it. And where
do you house it? Permanent supportive development projects is what
they call them, government funded drug dens at a million
dollars per unit, and if you're lucky, it's only six
(20:04):
hundred thousand dollars per unit. And of course, the developers
you get all these taxpayer goodies of subsidies, turn around
and give campaign contributions back to the politicians. You understand
why this mess continues is that they continue to use
it milk it for campaign contributions. Howard Jarvis taxpi's Association
(20:26):
shines a light on government to expose waste, frauden abuse,
and they also oppose these boondoggle tax hikes that have
been labeled as homeless solutions, when in fact they're nothing
more than grift. Susan Shelley joins us from Howard Jarvis
Taxpar's Association. She also writes as an editorial writer for
a number of media platforms in southern California. Susan, thanks
(20:48):
for stopping by. So what are you looking at in
this twenty four billion dollars homelessness industrial complex that the
California politicians have built. What do you see as some
of the most shocking elements of this scam?
Speaker 6 (21:03):
Well, thanks for having me, Carl to me, this is
almost becoming slapstick comedy. It's the most expensive ticket in
the history of movies, but it's slapstick comedy. Every time
the voters approve a tax increase for this terrible crisis,
the money is wasted. So what the politicians do is
they form oversight committees to give you the impression that
(21:24):
they are looking into what happened to your money. So
La County did a Blue Ribbon commission, which resulted in
an executive committee which recommended a leadership table, and now
they have all of these people going to meetings all
day long, and what's getting accomplished. Nothing, So the money
is wasted. They come back to the voters again and again.
We had Measure H, which was a sales tax increase,
(21:46):
but it was temporary. So then we had Measure A,
which made it permanent and doubled it. But of course
leadership table committees to oversee the money and all of
this to what do We have an Executive Committee for
Regional Homeless Alignant, and we have a twenty two member
board overseeing the Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency,
(22:07):
And then we have councils of government and we have
all of these different policy labs that are looking at
ways to make this accountable. It's all theater. It's all
theater because the voters have to approve the tax increases
and the voters are sick of it. So it's all
a big scam pretending they're doing oversight when in fact
they're not.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
You know, my.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Bill is going up tomorrow in the Housing Committee in Sacramento.
It's called the People First Law. It would basically repeal
Gavin Newsom's Housing First approach to homelessness that says, take
all the money, don't require treatment or any life changes
(22:49):
for these people. Just give the money to developers subsidize
these massive towers at a million dollars per pop. My
bill basically says no more. We're not going to fund
condo towers. We're not going to fund million dollar boon
doggles per unit. We're going to fund a shelter beds,
bunk style shelter beds, and B have requirements for treatment,
(23:13):
and C have work requirements for the individuals who benefit
from all these welfare programs. And that that will be
our approach, which is what most states are using. And
if that these almost people don't like it, well there's
the door. You know, you're not going to get You're
not going to get a subsidy. But the Democrats, I
guarantee you tomorrow they're going to kill the bill and
(23:37):
they'll continue to say that they have no other choice
but housing first. How do we get past that in
terms of the political system.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
In your estimation, well.
Speaker 6 (23:49):
You're one hundred percent right. Housing first has been a catastrophe.
I think it went into California law in twenty fifteen
or twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
About time, about the time that we saw almost.
Speaker 6 (24:02):
Exactly, and what it says essentially is that if there's
any public funding in the housing, they cannot turn people
away for actively using hard drugs, which really just destabilizes
everybody in the building who's not using hard drugs, because
now you've got dealers, and you've got problems, and you've
got in some cases violence, and it's a catastrophe for everybody.
So we have to get rid of this housing first thing.
(24:24):
There has to be some level of personal responsibility for
people who are capable of that, and for people who
have severe mental illness, gravely disabling mental illness. Housing first
is not the solution. The solution is to have well
funded mental health hospitals for people who need medical care.
We're not doing people any favors by saying you're free
to sleep on a park bench, or we'll charge the
(24:47):
taxpayers something like one hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars
a year to keep you in a motel room. That
is not a solution, and it's not good for the
people who are on the street. It's not good for
the communities, it's not good for the taxpayers. Who is
it good for the people who are drawing huge salaries
and getting these big contracts to spend these billions of dollars.
(25:07):
They're doing fine, but everybody else is hurting.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
We also have our good friend Bill A.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Saley, who was in the state legislature but just got
appointed US Attorney for Southern District the Central District, Sorry,
and is investigating homeless fraud by state and local politicians
and the various developers and grant recipients and consultants and contractors.
(25:37):
He's going after civil and criminal liabilities in his investigation,
and he says that he will indict people if evidence
shows that they've misappropriated taxpayer funds. Do you think it's
going to take indictments in order to start getting this
whole entire scandal out to the public light, to start
(26:00):
getting reform.
Speaker 6 (26:02):
I do think so. I think the advantage of a
federal investigation from the US Attorney's Office and Bill A.
Sale will do a remarkable job. He's great. The advantage
is that it comes with all of the resources of
the federal government subpoena power, grand juries, but the IRS
Criminal Division, the US Treasury Department finding suspicious activity reports
(26:23):
that come in from banks. They're going to find the
wire transfers, if there are any that are illegal, they're
going to find all of it. And to the extent
that federal law was broken, people should be held accountable
because this is not solving the problem. Throwing these billions
and billions of dollars at it not solving the problem.
It's unacceptable.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Susan Shelley with Howard Jarvis Taxis Association, thanks for shining
a light on this and staying on top of it.
Let me tell you this, I do believe that criminal
misconduct will be found by BILLI Sale, but I will
also tell you that the reason why politicians are able
to get away with this crap is that waste full spending,
(27:02):
felonious wasteful spending is not technically illegal. It's immoral, it's unacceptable.
But for government wasteful spending, I mean golly, they'll just
simply say, well, the voters get to throw politicians out.
That's the criminal sentence, that's the sanction, that's the accountability
to throw them out of office.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
We have to open the eyes of voters to see
this is not about helping people. It's not helping people, clearly,
problems getting worse. This is about politicians giving kickbacks to
their campaign contributors. What's astounding about this is that they
give the money to these developers, and in the plain
light of day, the developers turn around and cut a
(27:46):
campaign check back. But because you can't prove there's a
quid pro quote, it's more of like a wink and
a nod. It's hard to prosecute because you can't prohibit
someone who You can't say it's illegal for someone to
give a campaign contribution. I wish we could do that,
but the First Amendment political speech is protected, and speeches
(28:07):
and campaign contributions have been considered to be speech. What
we need to do is connect the dots and say
follow the money. Taxes are increased, money's given to a developer.
Developer gives it back to the politician. The politician raises
your taxes, gives the money to developer. Developer gives it
back to the politician. Rinse and repeat, Rinson repeat, it's
(28:28):
the scam.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Follow the money.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Coming up, we're gonna do more of your talkback feature,
your submissions on the talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app,
so keep them coming. Also, we're going to get into
fixing schools. In our three o'clock hour.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI A six.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Carl DeMaio, California State Representative, Chairman of Reform California, filling
in for John Cobel. He's off on vacation this week
and I'm having a lot of fun. I've asked you
to ask any question, or share any feedback, or bring
up any topic or issue that you want me to
weigh in on about how government works or as the
(29:14):
case maybe does not work. Use the talkback feature on
the iHeartRadio app to share your feedback and ask your question.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
So do we have.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Any additional ones that you want to hit me with now?
But again, as I said in the last hour, I
do not get to pre vet these. I don't listen
to them ahead of time. I'm hearing them right as
you're hearing them, so hopefully I'm not going to get stumped.
But producer Ray and director Eric have gone through the
talkback submissions and they've got a couple for me to
(29:50):
respond to.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
So let's go with the next one.
Speaker 7 (29:52):
Hi, Carl, this is Greg and Temecula. I'm really glad
you're sitting in for John in the next couple of days.
I'd like you to talk to us about all of
them EDD money that was stolen, billions and billions and
billions of dollars that suddenly went missing and nobody's accounting
for it. So could you look into that and tell
us what's going on. Thanks.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Oh, that's a good topic. I really appreciate you bringing
it up. What is EDD? Is it one of those
blue pills that some of the old guys take. No, no, no,
no no.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
EDD is the Employment Development Department. In other words, it
is the unemployment insurance. So when you lose a job,
you get unemployment. And so in California, Gavin Newsom shut
down our economy in twenty twenty, you may remember, and
for the first time ever, some of you had to
(30:43):
go and get unemployment. And so government wrote a bunch
of checks and all the scammers said, ooh, this is
a great system. Let's create fictitious people like Mickey Mouse
and put in for unemployment. Gavin Newsom did not manage
(31:03):
the program properly, and as a result, thirty ready for this,
thirty billion dollars in fraudulent unemployment checks were mailed out
and he didn't care about it.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
He didn't. He didn't.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
No one held him accountable. The liberal media certainly hasn't
hold him acount held him accountable.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Thirty billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Most people would literally lose their job over thirty billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Three million dollars would be too much.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
This guy literally lost thirty billion dollars for taxpayers, and
the media shrugged and he got off the hook. In
order to pay the thirty billion, he borrowed twenty eight
billion dollars from the federal government.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
In your name.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
And now the bill is due. So instead of Gavin
Newsom saying, all right, government bureaucrats screwed this up, so
we're gonna have to take this from the state general fund,
which means we have to cut pay, cut the bloat,
shrink the bureaucracy, in other words, doze California. Instead of
(32:12):
telling the bureaucrats they screwed up and they're gonna have
to tighten the belt, what do they do. They increase
the payroll tax on every business in the state. The
payroll tax, So for every job you have at your
employee that you have at your business, you're gonna pay
(32:36):
sixty three dollars in a higher payroll tax. This is
more than a billion dollars of tax increases each year.
So he's gonna raise payroll taxes tied to every single
job that we have in California. When you increase the
cost of creating a job in California, guess what happens.
(32:56):
Number One, people don't create jobs in California. They create
jobs in other states because it's cheaper. And number two,
they lay people off. Less money in your labor account
means less money in people's paychecks and in their pockets.
Gavin Newsom imposed through his budget a massive payroll tax,
(33:20):
a job's tax, and the media doesn't make a big
deal about it, big tax increase instead of taking it
through efficiencies and reform. Oh, by the way, he raises
taxes across the state on all the small businesses and
(33:41):
all these job creators and kills jobs, while giving his
rich Hollywood billionaire friends a tax credit of seven hundred
and fifty million dollars. So the big billionaire media companies,
the Hollywood studios are going to get a tax credit
(34:03):
while everyone else gets sucker punched with a per job
payroll tax increase.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Mccarl, the Hollywood jobs are important too.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
You know what, I don't like picking winners and losers.
How about we make everyone a winner by reducing the
costs across the board for any job created, whether it's
in Hollywood, whether it's in healthcare, whether it's in construction.
Why don't we make California a job friendly state.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Across the board.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Rather than saying, well, you, Hollywood studios, you've been really
helpful to us by putting out your propaganda films.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
You've lied to people in your.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Quote unquote news programs, and you ligne our pockets with
campaign contributions. So you get a tax credit of almost
three quarters of a billion while we increase a billion
dollars of taxes on everyone else. Now, you don't do
it that way. You cut taxes across the board and
(35:02):
make it better for all job creators to create jobs.
That's not what Newsom has done. This edd scandal is
not just about the fraud. It's about all this other
nonsense that has happened thereafter. All right, keep those questions
coming on the iHeartRadio app. Also sign up at voter
idpetition dot org if you want to get California voter
ID on the ballot. Voteridpetition dot org.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
That's the website.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Coming up three o'clock hour, we're gonna talk about fixing schools.
It's really not that hard if you have the political willingness,
and we're going to talk about how we build the
political willingness. Coming up, this is Carl Demio sitting in
for John Cobelt, but first News with Eileen Gonzalez in
the KFI twenty four hour Newsroom.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Hey, you've been listening to the John Covelt Show podcast.
You can always hear the show live on KFI Am
six forty from one to four pm every Monday through Friday,
and of course, anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
Can't. I am six forty. You're listening to the John
Cobel podcast on the iHeartRadio apps.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
This is Carl Demayo filling in for John Cobot. We
are talking about all of the problems that plague us
in California, in Southern California in particular, and why why.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Are things so bad? But also what can we do
about it?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
So I always say I don't want to just increase
your blood pressure by giving you the bad news. I
want to give you the truth. You deserve the truth
because it's frustrating seeing things get really bad and you're
being told, well, if you raise your taxes and you
regulate this and give us your freedom on.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
That, well solve your problems.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Because my name is slick politician also known as Gavin Newsom. Yeah,
so the slick politicians are saying, oh, they've got it
in the bag, don't worry about it, and always always
involves more regulation, higher taxes, and less freedom. Funny, funny
that single solution, everything can be solved with higher taxes,
(01:04):
just give us part your money and everything will be perfect.
Well that's not been working out, And so we expose
why things are so bad.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
But then we tell you what you can do about it.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Again, The first and most important thing we can do
is we have to fix our broken political system, and
that requires California voter ID. We need a million signatures.
Go on the website voter idpetition dot org voter idpetition
dot org.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
And sign up.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
If you don't do it, and if you don't, share
that website, because I need you not just to sign up,
I need you to share it with all your friends,
get them to sign up voter idpetition dot org. If
you don't do it, I can't do it. Like I
don't have a magic wand I'm a volunteer just like
anyone else. I make not a single penny off of
my political advocacy. I'm doing this as a passion project
(01:57):
because I am so sick of the way our state
has been running to the ground and we have a
bunch of liars, cheats and thieves that are profiting off
of it, and we need to fix the political system.
It requires voter ideas the starting point. Voteridpetition dot org.
Let's talk about homelessness. This is such a scam and
(02:19):
it's why I'm so grateful that my good friend Bill
is Saley, who's now the US Attorney for Southern California.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
In the Trump administration.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
He is now investigating both criminal and civil malfeasance as
it relates to California homeless funding. So they've spent twenty
four billion dollars on homelessness since Gaven Newsom was sworn
in as governor, twenty four billion. No state has spent
more money on homelessness per capita, per homeless person, per
(02:51):
square inch of fecal lined sidewalks in California. No state
has spent more taxpayer money by every measurement than California
on homelessness, and no state has had a bigger increase
than California. While the rest of the country since twenty
ten has seen a decline of homelessness, that's double digits,
(03:14):
eighteen percent decline since twenty ten in homelessness nationwide, California
has had a massive increase. It is triple digit increase
in Los Angeles, in San Diego, in San Francisco, the
urban areas. We have twelve percent of the nation's population,
(03:35):
but we have fifty five percent of the nation's un
sheltered homeless. Twelve percent of the population of the nation,
but fifty five percent of the homeless problem. Yet we're
spending more money than any other state. Why because in
other states, they're all the other forty nine states, they
(03:59):
deal with homelessness as a law enforcement issue because it is.
Let me, let me explain why are people homeless, and
people will say, correl.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
It's because of the price of housing. That's why people
are homeless.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
It's so expensive, no doubt, it's expensive to live in California.
But recognize that housing prices. Rents and housing prices nationwide
have gone up by some like sixty percent nationwide since
twenty ten, but homelessness has gone down by double digits.
So there is no causality or correlation between an increase
(04:34):
in the property prices housing prices and homelessness. There's no causation.
There's no correlation, zero, zip, nada. Now, when prices get
more expensive, people have to kind of shack up together,
and people unfortunately have to do that in California, or
they have to squad on someone's property.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
But no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Rising rents not an issue with homelessness. What is homeless?
People are not just struggling with rent. They don't have
a job, they can't keep a job. You give them
five hundred dollars, and you say, hey, I'm gonna give
you five hundred dollars a month cash, and I'm gonna
(05:19):
rent you an apartment for five hundred dollars a month.
They're not gonna take that five hundred dollars and pay rent.
You know we're gonna put that five hundred dollars. They're
gonna put it up their nose, down their throat, or
in their vein. Drug addiction, mental health. Those are the
two drivers of homelessness, because homeless people are broken people.
(05:40):
I don't like to say it that way, but that's
kind of as blunt as I can get. Now, there's
about twenty percent of homeless that are what we call
economically displaced. These are people who maybe are behind on
their bills, got evicted, or more than anything else, these
are people who get in a fight and get thrown
out of their current living situation, and so they're out
on the streets and they don't have a job and
(06:01):
theyn't have means. Now, they can get a job and
usually they find a place to stay, but sometimes they're
on the streets in their car. They tend to be
people who are what we call upper class homeless. They
have a car, they have a gym membership, they shower
at the gym. These twenty percent, yes we have an
issue with let's figure out how to address that. But
(06:22):
eighty percent of homeless are what we call chronic homeless.
They are broken people. Can I get a little bit
more personal? Yeah, I'm looking at you. I'm about to
say something. I'm about to give you an example that's
probably going to hit close to home. All of us
have a family member at some point in our life
(06:45):
who is a little nutty, is mentally ill, bipolar, borderline personality,
major depression, Maybe they're on drugs, maybe they engage in
substance abuse. Typically it's dual diagnose both. When you had
to deal with that family member, whether it was an aunt,
an uncle, a mom, a dad, a child, a brother,
(07:08):
a sister, you loved him.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Didn't you. You still love them no matter what they've
done to you.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
But at some point, when you begged them and you
fought with them, you got to a point where it
was hurting you so much, or damaging you so much,
negatively impacting you so much the behavior that you finally said,
I can't live with this anymore.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
You got to go.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Everyone who's homeless has had a family whose love was
not enough, whose love could not get them to deal
with the substance abuse or the mental health issue, and
they found the person finds himself on the street and
it's aspiral. So as I tell you, where love fails,
(07:56):
the law must intervene. The only way to get someone
to go into a treatment program, the only way to
get someone to follow their mental health therapy, take the medicine.
A lot of mental health is medicine based. Is de
mandated through the law.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
The carl it's their civil right. No no, no, no, no, no,
no no no.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
If someone were to suddenly stop breathing and we're choking
or passes out, government would come in the form of
an EMT, a paramedic and give them life saving therapy
mouth to mouth, and we wouldn't say you've deprived that
person of their human right. They have due process. You
can't force air in their lungs. Most people would say,
(08:43):
thank you for giving me CPR. We have to have
a process like all the other forty nine states, but
we don't have it here in California because the leftists
have contaminated our thinking on this issue where they basically
say it is a human right for someone to sit
on the sidewalk, and well, you know, just sit there
(09:04):
and do even worse than just sit there. And they
also say, becare we don't want to criminalize homelessness. I'm
telling you everyone who's homeless probably has violated the law.
They've got a wrap sheet already. We've got to use
law enforcement as the stick and the treatment as the
carrot in order to get people to break the cycle
(09:28):
of dependency and craziness and addiction and all sorts of
other demons to help them. But in California, we don't
do that. In California, we have something called Housing First,
and it sounds good, but it's really rotten and bad.
But the only people benefiting from Housing First are the
politicians and their campaign contributors. Coming up, I'll explain how
(09:52):
the money laundering scam is working for homeless funds being
transferred to politicians and their campaign contributors.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
You're listening to John Cobalt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Carl DeMaio sitting in for John Cobalt. We're talking about homelessness.
Twenty four billion dollars of California taxpayer money spent since
Gavin Newsom came to office. We have a massive set
of tax increases that have been put into place all
around California with the label homelessness solution, Solve homelessness just.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
For pennies on the dollar. We're just gonna raise a
tax here and there and we're gonna solve homelessness. It's
for the people, those poor people on the sidewalk. Do
something about it. Compassion, give us more of your money.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
They took all this money from you and people are
still on the street, and in fact it's worse than ever.
So where's the money gone. It's not going to substance
abuse or mental health treatment. No, no, no, it's not
even going to shelter beds, bunk beds, shelter beds. You
(11:02):
know where. It's going to a program called Housing First.
Housing First says in all of the taxpayer funded programs,
if you get any state tax money or local tax money,
the homeless provider is not allowed. They are barred by
law from requiring mental health or substance abuse issues to
(11:24):
be addressed. You're not allowed to require it. You can't
have rules for clean, sane and sober living. If you do,
you lose your state and local money boom. You're disqualified.
And so you have to literally say, hey, you can
do whatever you want. Here are the keys to your condo.
(11:45):
They don't want shelter beds, they don't even want transition
housing units, temporary housing units for people who are stabilized
and they're getting a job. They're just earning enough money
for their down payment or their security deposit their own apartment. No, no, no, no,
we're not allowing transition housing anymore. In fact, they take
transition housing and they make it permanent housing. They have
(12:06):
something called permanent support of housing. You what that is
defined as you give the homeless drug addict, the crazy
person a key to a taxpayer funded condo unit, and
you are on the hook now to pay for that
condo unit forever. And because we don't have enough of
(12:27):
these condo units, the money that we are spending on
homelessness is not going to treatment. It's not going to
shelters or shelter beds. You know where it's going. It's
going to rich developers who build condo towers at a
cost of a million dollars in some cases per unit.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
That's Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Nothing says affordable housing like a million dollars per unit.
This is felony, ineptitude, or criminal, which is not a
good look or it neither is acceptable. A million dollars
per unit. Sometimes we get a break. Sometimes it's only
(13:09):
six hundred thousand dollars per unit.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
For public housing. Here is a story a year ago
in Los Angeles. KTLA was talking about a new homeless shelter,
massive Skyrise Tower six hundred thousand dollars per unit.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Listening.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
This is an affordable housing building that will shelter people,
provide permanent homes for people who have experienced homelessness in
the past, permanent supportive housing for people people. As I mentioned,
two hundred and seventy eight apartments. This is near sixth
and San Pedro. They're furnished with central heat and air,
fully equipped kitchens, amenities like a gym, with wrap around
(13:50):
social services on site. This building replaces a parking lot
that was here before.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Who will live here?
Speaker 5 (13:56):
The developer says, low income residents with Section H about
the Section eight vouchers for federally subsidized housing and general
tenants pay thirty percent of their income with those vouchers
The project is a public private partnership. The developer tells
me it's one hundred and sixty million dollars. That's the
basic cost of the project and had a variety of
funding sources, including thirty two million dollars from Proposition HHH,
(14:21):
which you may recall, was approved by LA voters in
twenty sixteen, providing funding for homeless housing. There's also county
funding involved. It works out to just under six hundred
thousand dollars a unit.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Joke's on you take a hundred thousand dollars a unit. Oh,
I don't know what's worse.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Six hundred thousand dollars per quote affordable housing unit in
a condo tower which includes a gym, a gym you know,
fitness center, a rooftop deck.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
A pool, and no one's required to get a job.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
By the way, God for bid, we ask people to
get jobs in this state. We do have a plan
for dealing with homelessness at Reform California.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
I introduced the bill.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
In fact, tomorrow the Democrats are probably going to kill
my bill. It's going to a committee hearing. Instead of
housing first, I say we need a people first solution
deal with the root cause of homelessness, which is drug
addiction and mental health issue. Require that they get the treatment,
(15:36):
and in the meantime, don't give them a million dollar
condo unit, don't give them a six hundred thousand dollars unit.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Give them a bunk bed in a shelter.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
If our military service members can live in bunk style living,
I think a drug addict also can live in bunk
style living.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
And by the way, every day they should go to treatment.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
But then when they're done with treatment, they should go
and work for the public for free, picking up trash.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Along the freeways, in the beaches and the bays.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
We all have the cleanest damn community you will ever imagine.
I want them scrubbing sidewalks because you know, most of
the stuff on those sidewalks yep, caused by homeless people
left there, all sorts of bodily fluids and material. Clean
up the sidewalks, pick up the trash because we're giving
(16:29):
you three square meals a day, we're doing the treatment program.
We're giving you housing at night in the bunk shelters,
and will let you earn a little keep and you
can save that money so that you can finally get
your own place.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Be coral. You can't require this. This is too hard nose,
it's too where's your compassion? You know what?
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I don't think enabling someone to die of a drug
overdose and a taxpayer funded taj Mahal tower is compatib
I think it's a lousy It's lousy to taxpayers, it's
lousy to the people who are homeless. It's failed. You
had your shot, you spent twenty four billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
You fail.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
But here's why they're going to continue to do it,
because they're not about solving homelessness. It's never been about
solving homelessness. The developers who get these contracts to do
the million dollar per unit condo towers, they give campaign
contributions to the politicians.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Yes, it always.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Comes back to what happens in the campaign funds of
the politicians. The projects have to be built with union labor.
The union dues are taken out of paychecks that goes
to politicians. But then of course the developers directly subsidize
do campaign contributions to political parties, to candidates, to ballot measures.
(17:57):
This is a money laundering scam, converting your taxpayer money
into campaign contributions. The politicians get a cut of the grift.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
All right.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Coming up, we're going to talk to Susan Shelley of
the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer's Association. They've been great partners with
Reform California in advocating for common sense. Plus more of
your talkback, comments and questions on the iHeartRadio app So
keep them coming.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI A
six forty.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
I love what we're doing today and what we're doing
all week.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
We're talking about the scandals, the scams, the problems, and
the broken political system here in California. What we all
can do to force change to happen. One of the
best things you can do is help us get a
million signatures on the voter ID initiative. Go to voter
id petition dot org, voteridpetition dot org, sign the petition
(18:57):
and get a bunch of your friends to sign up
at voter idpetition dot org. We need a million signatures
to put it on the ballot in twenty twenty six
and clean up our elections. And I think by cleaning
up our elections, we'll clean up our politics. We're talking
about twenty four billion dollars being spent on homelessness since
twenty eighteen when Governor Gavin Newsom took office. But our
(19:17):
homeless problem is worse than ever, up by triple digits
in some urban areas, double digits statewide. We have twelve
percent of the nation's population here in California, but we
have fifty five percent of the nation's unsheltered homeless population.
And we prohibit homeless providers from getting any state or
local money if they use any sort of requirements for
(19:41):
substance abuse or mental health treatment. Getting to the root
cause of homelessness in people. No, no, you can't fix
the problem. You just got to house it. And where
do you house it? Permanent supportive development projects is what
they call them, government funded drug dens at a million
dollars per unit, and if you're lucky, it's only six
(20:04):
hundred thousand dollars per unit. And of course, the developers
you get all these taxpayer goodies of subsidies, turn around
and give campaign contributions back to the politicians. You understand
why this mess continues is that they continue to use
it milk it for campaign contributions. Howard Jarvis taxpi's Association
(20:26):
shines a light on government to expose waste, frauden abuse,
and they also oppose these boondoggle tax hikes that have
been labeled as homeless solutions, when in fact they're nothing
more than grift. Susan Shelley joins us from Howard Jarvis
Taxpar's Association. She also writes as an editorial writer for
a number of media platforms in southern California. Susan, thanks
(20:48):
for stopping by. So what are you looking at in
this twenty four billion dollars homelessness industrial complex that the
California politicians have built. What do you see as some
of the most shocking elements of this scam?
Speaker 6 (21:03):
Well, thanks for having me, Carl to me, this is
almost becoming slapstick comedy. It's the most expensive ticket in
the history of movies, but it's slapstick comedy. Every time
the voters approve a tax increase for this terrible crisis,
the money is wasted. So what the politicians do is
they form oversight committees to give you the impression that
(21:24):
they are looking into what happened to your money. So
La County did a Blue Ribbon commission, which resulted in
an executive committee which recommended a leadership table, and now
they have all of these people going to meetings all
day long, and what's getting accomplished. Nothing, So the money
is wasted. They come back to the voters again and again.
We had Measure H, which was a sales tax increase,
(21:46):
but it was temporary. So then we had Measure A,
which made it permanent and doubled it. But of course
leadership table committees to oversee the money and all of
this to what do We have an Executive Committee for
Regional Homeless Alignant, and we have a twenty two member
board overseeing the Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency,
(22:07):
And then we have councils of government and we have
all of these different policy labs that are looking at
ways to make this accountable. It's all theater. It's all
theater because the voters have to approve the tax increases
and the voters are sick of it. So it's all
a big scam pretending they're doing oversight when in fact
they're not.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
You know, my.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Bill is going up tomorrow in the Housing Committee in Sacramento.
It's called the People First Law. It would basically repeal
Gavin Newsom's Housing First approach to homelessness that says, take
all the money, don't require treatment or any life changes
(22:49):
for these people. Just give the money to developers subsidize
these massive towers at a million dollars per pop. My
bill basically says no more. We're not going to fund
condo towers. We're not going to fund million dollar boon
doggles per unit. We're going to fund a shelter beds,
bunk style shelter beds, and B have requirements for treatment,
(23:13):
and C have work requirements for the individuals who benefit
from all these welfare programs. And that that will be
our approach, which is what most states are using. And
if that these almost people don't like it, well there's
the door. You know, you're not going to get You're
not going to get a subsidy. But the Democrats, I
guarantee you tomorrow they're going to kill the bill and
(23:37):
they'll continue to say that they have no other choice
but housing first. How do we get past that in
terms of the political system.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
In your estimation, well.
Speaker 6 (23:49):
You're one hundred percent right. Housing first has been a catastrophe.
I think it went into California law in twenty fifteen
or twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
About time, about the time that we saw almost.
Speaker 6 (24:02):
Exactly, and what it says essentially is that if there's
any public funding in the housing, they cannot turn people
away for actively using hard drugs, which really just destabilizes
everybody in the building who's not using hard drugs, because
now you've got dealers, and you've got problems, and you've
got in some cases violence, and it's a catastrophe for everybody.
So we have to get rid of this housing first thing.
(24:24):
There has to be some level of personal responsibility for
people who are capable of that, and for people who
have severe mental illness, gravely disabling mental illness. Housing first
is not the solution. The solution is to have well
funded mental health hospitals for people who need medical care.
We're not doing people any favors by saying you're free
to sleep on a park bench, or we'll charge the
(24:47):
taxpayers something like one hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars
a year to keep you in a motel room. That
is not a solution, and it's not good for the
people who are on the street. It's not good for
the communities, it's not good for the taxpayers. Who is
it good for the people who are drawing huge salaries
and getting these big contracts to spend these billions of dollars.
(25:07):
They're doing fine, but everybody else is hurting.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
We also have our good friend Bill A.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Saley, who was in the state legislature but just got
appointed US Attorney for Southern District the Central District, Sorry,
and is investigating homeless fraud by state and local politicians
and the various developers and grant recipients and consultants and contractors.
(25:37):
He's going after civil and criminal liabilities in his investigation,
and he says that he will indict people if evidence
shows that they've misappropriated taxpayer funds. Do you think it's
going to take indictments in order to start getting this
whole entire scandal out to the public light, to start
(26:00):
getting reform.
Speaker 6 (26:02):
I do think so. I think the advantage of a
federal investigation from the US Attorney's Office and Bill A.
Sale will do a remarkable job. He's great. The advantage
is that it comes with all of the resources of
the federal government subpoena power, grand juries, but the IRS
Criminal Division, the US Treasury Department finding suspicious activity reports
(26:23):
that come in from banks. They're going to find the
wire transfers, if there are any that are illegal, they're
going to find all of it. And to the extent
that federal law was broken, people should be held accountable
because this is not solving the problem. Throwing these billions
and billions of dollars at it not solving the problem.
It's unacceptable.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Susan Shelley with Howard Jarvis Taxis Association, thanks for shining
a light on this and staying on top of it.
Let me tell you this, I do believe that criminal
misconduct will be found by BILLI Sale, but I will
also tell you that the reason why politicians are able
to get away with this crap is that waste full spending,
(27:02):
felonious wasteful spending is not technically illegal. It's immoral, it's unacceptable.
But for government wasteful spending, I mean golly, they'll just
simply say, well, the voters get to throw politicians out.
That's the criminal sentence, that's the sanction, that's the accountability
to throw them out of office.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
We have to open the eyes of voters to see
this is not about helping people. It's not helping people, clearly,
problems getting worse. This is about politicians giving kickbacks to
their campaign contributors. What's astounding about this is that they
give the money to these developers, and in the plain
light of day, the developers turn around and cut a
(27:46):
campaign check back. But because you can't prove there's a
quid pro quote, it's more of like a wink and
a nod. It's hard to prosecute because you can't prohibit
someone who You can't say it's illegal for someone to
give a campaign contribution. I wish we could do that,
but the First Amendment political speech is protected, and speeches
(28:07):
and campaign contributions have been considered to be speech. What
we need to do is connect the dots and say
follow the money. Taxes are increased, money's given to a developer.
Developer gives it back to the politician. The politician raises
your taxes, gives the money to developer. Developer gives it
back to the politician. Rinse and repeat, Rinson repeat, it's
(28:28):
the scam.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Follow the money.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Coming up, we're gonna do more of your talkback feature,
your submissions on the talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app,
so keep them coming. Also, we're going to get into
fixing schools. In our three o'clock hour.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI A six.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Carl DeMaio, California State Representative, Chairman of Reform California, filling
in for John Cobel. He's off on vacation this week
and I'm having a lot of fun. I've asked you
to ask any question, or share any feedback, or bring
up any topic or issue that you want me to
weigh in on about how government works or as the
(29:14):
case maybe does not work. Use the talkback feature on
the iHeartRadio app to share your feedback and ask your question.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
So do we have.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Any additional ones that you want to hit me with now?
But again, as I said in the last hour, I
do not get to pre vet these. I don't listen
to them ahead of time. I'm hearing them right as
you're hearing them, so hopefully I'm not going to get stumped.
But producer Ray and director Eric have gone through the
talkback submissions and they've got a couple for me to
(29:50):
respond to.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
So let's go with the next one.
Speaker 7 (29:52):
Hi, Carl, this is Greg and Temecula. I'm really glad
you're sitting in for John in the next couple of days.
I'd like you to talk to us about all of
them EDD money that was stolen, billions and billions and
billions of dollars that suddenly went missing and nobody's accounting
for it. So could you look into that and tell
us what's going on. Thanks.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Oh, that's a good topic. I really appreciate you bringing
it up. What is EDD? Is it one of those
blue pills that some of the old guys take. No, no, no,
no no.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
EDD is the Employment Development Department. In other words, it
is the unemployment insurance. So when you lose a job,
you get unemployment. And so in California, Gavin Newsom shut
down our economy in twenty twenty, you may remember, and
for the first time ever, some of you had to
(30:43):
go and get unemployment. And so government wrote a bunch
of checks and all the scammers said, ooh, this is
a great system. Let's create fictitious people like Mickey Mouse
and put in for unemployment. Gavin Newsom did not manage
(31:03):
the program properly, and as a result, thirty ready for this,
thirty billion dollars in fraudulent unemployment checks were mailed out
and he didn't care about it.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
He didn't. He didn't.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
No one held him accountable. The liberal media certainly hasn't
hold him acount held him accountable.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Thirty billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Most people would literally lose their job over thirty billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Three million dollars would be too much.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
This guy literally lost thirty billion dollars for taxpayers, and
the media shrugged and he got off the hook. In
order to pay the thirty billion, he borrowed twenty eight
billion dollars from the federal government.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
In your name.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
And now the bill is due. So instead of Gavin
Newsom saying, all right, government bureaucrats screwed this up, so
we're gonna have to take this from the state general fund,
which means we have to cut pay, cut the bloat,
shrink the bureaucracy, in other words, doze California. Instead of
(32:12):
telling the bureaucrats they screwed up and they're gonna have
to tighten the belt, what do they do. They increase
the payroll tax on every business in the state. The
payroll tax, So for every job you have at your
employee that you have at your business, you're gonna pay
(32:36):
sixty three dollars in a higher payroll tax. This is
more than a billion dollars of tax increases each year.
So he's gonna raise payroll taxes tied to every single
job that we have in California. When you increase the
cost of creating a job in California, guess what happens.
(32:56):
Number One, people don't create jobs in California. They create
jobs in other states because it's cheaper. And number two,
they lay people off. Less money in your labor account
means less money in people's paychecks and in their pockets.
Gavin Newsom imposed through his budget a massive payroll tax,
(33:20):
a job's tax, and the media doesn't make a big
deal about it, big tax increase instead of taking it
through efficiencies and reform. Oh, by the way, he raises
taxes across the state on all the small businesses and
(33:41):
all these job creators and kills jobs, while giving his
rich Hollywood billionaire friends a tax credit of seven hundred
and fifty million dollars. So the big billionaire media companies,
the Hollywood studios are going to get a tax credit
(34:03):
while everyone else gets sucker punched with a per job
payroll tax increase.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Mccarl, the Hollywood jobs are important too.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
You know what, I don't like picking winners and losers.
How about we make everyone a winner by reducing the
costs across the board for any job created, whether it's
in Hollywood, whether it's in healthcare, whether it's in construction.
Why don't we make California a job friendly state.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Across the board.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Rather than saying, well, you, Hollywood studios, you've been really
helpful to us by putting out your propaganda films.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
You've lied to people in your.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Quote unquote news programs, and you ligne our pockets with
campaign contributions. So you get a tax credit of almost
three quarters of a billion while we increase a billion
dollars of taxes on everyone else. Now, you don't do
it that way. You cut taxes across the board and
(35:02):
make it better for all job creators to create jobs.
That's not what Newsom has done. This edd scandal is
not just about the fraud. It's about all this other
nonsense that has happened thereafter. All right, keep those questions
coming on the iHeartRadio app. Also sign up at voter
idpetition dot org if you want to get California voter
ID on the ballot. Voteridpetition dot org.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
That's the website.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Coming up three o'clock hour, we're gonna talk about fixing schools.
It's really not that hard if you have the political willingness,
and we're going to talk about how we build the
political willingness. Coming up, this is Carl Demio sitting in
for John Cobelt, but first News with Eileen Gonzalez in
the KFI twenty four hour Newsroom.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Hey, you've been listening to the John Covelt Show podcast.
You can always hear the show live on KFI Am
six forty from one to four pm every Monday through Friday,
and of course, anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
The John Kobylt Show News
Host
John Kobylt
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