Why doesn't more spending deliver better services?

We see cost escalations on a lot of projects. So it's not, you know, it's not the same as fraud. I mean, that's the like under one percent, but it's still a huge waste. If you have a project cost one percent or 10 percent or some case, sometimes 100 percent more than it should, right? I mean, by definition, every penny it takes to build something more than what it was actually required is wasted. And I do think there's a lot of that. I think government gets in its own way with procedure.

So there is a real lack of accountability in government. We don't have a money problem in Sacramento. We have an incentives problem. We have a structure that allows us to keep shoveling more money into things that aren't working. Just take high-speed rail. If a startup took 20 years, spent $14 billion and didn't deliver a product, people would have been fired a long time ago. And we're just not seeing that level of accountability in our state government.

Is this theft? Where does the money go? $14 billion. Who has that $14 billion today?

It's contractors, it's lawyers. Some of it has gone into actually building the project. But belatedly, what happens in California, and the reason we can't build, we can't do big things anymore, is that we've got endless process, years of environmental review, the most litigious environment imaginable, anybody can sue under CEQA. You don't even have to be a resident of California to sue under CEQA. And so you just get years of litigation, bureaucracy. When it comes to housing, just to slightly switch topics, the fees that cities can assess, one-time fees can add 20% to the cost of a project. So we've just, we've bureaucratized the state to the point where it's total paralysis.

We see cost escalations on a lot of projects. So it's not, you know, it's not the same as fraud. I mean, that's the like under one percent, but it's still a huge waste. If you have a project cost one percent or 10 percent or some case, sometimes 100 percent more than it should, right? I mean, by definition, every penny it takes to build something more than what it was actually required is wasted. And I do think there's a lot of that. I think government gets in its own way with procedure.

So there is a real lack of accountability in government. We don't have a money problem in Sacramento. We have an incentives problem. We have a structure that allows us to keep shoveling more money into things that aren't working. Just take high-speed rail. If a startup took 20 years, spent $14 billion and didn't deliver a product, people would have been fired a long time ago. And we're just not seeing that level of accountability in our state government.

Is this theft? Where does the money go? $14 billion. Who has that $14 billion today?

It's contractors, it's lawyers. Some of it has gone into actually building the project. But belatedly, what happens in California, and the reason we can't build, we can't do big things anymore, is that we've got endless process, years of environmental review, the most litigious environment imaginable, anybody can sue under CEQA. You don't even have to be a resident of California to sue under CEQA. And so you just get years of litigation, bureaucracy. When it comes to housing, just to slightly switch topics, the fees that cities can assess, one-time fees can add 20% to the cost of a project. So we've just, we've bureaucratized the state to the point where it's total paralysis.

If you just look at the budget per person, places like Texas and Florida spend about $5,000 per citizen on services, if you divide the budget by the population, and then you look at New York City, it's close to $13,000, and you look at California, close to $9,000, and you simply do not get two or two and a half times or two point X times the value living in those states in terms of services.

The problems are all worse.

And it's competence, yes, it's worse.

The problems are worse.

So there is a real lack of accountability in government. We don't have a money problem in Sacramento. We have an incentives problem. We have a structure that allows us to keep shoveling more money into things that aren't working. Just take high-speed rail. If a startup took 20 years, spent $14 billion and didn't deliver a product, people would have been fired a long time ago. And we're just not seeing that level of accountability in our state government.

Is this theft? Where does the money go? $14 billion. Who has that $14 billion today?

It's contractors, it's lawyers. Some of it has gone into actually building the project. But belatedly, what happens in California, and the reason we can't build, we can't do big things anymore, is that we've got endless process, years of environmental review, the most litigious environment imaginable, anybody can sue under CEQA. You don't even have to be a resident of California to sue under CEQA. And so you just get years of litigation, bureaucracy. When it comes to housing, just to slightly switch topics, the fees that cities can assess, one-time fees can add 20% to the cost of a project. So we've just, we've bureaucratized the state to the point where it's total paralysis.

Yeah, you're talking about taking an inefficient government, and making it efficient, okay? And having to do it quick, because there are elections, and if people don't like it, then, you know, you lose your mandate. And in a society in which no matter what you do, you're criticized and torn down. So, you know, we have the fact of the question of does democracy and our system lend itself toward the sort of executive leadership that both makes it efficient and makes it acceptable for all people? You know, there was a lot of cutbacks, you know, things like school lunch programs and things, you know, and then trying to do it surgically. So it's, how do you do that effectively, quickly, in a manner that doesn't cause so much controversy that the government falls?

We see cost escalations on a lot of projects. So it's not, you know, it's not the same as fraud. I mean, that's the like under one percent, but it's still a huge waste. If you have a project cost one percent or 10 percent or some case, sometimes 100 percent more than it should, right? I mean, by definition, every penny it takes to build something more than what it was actually required is wasted. And I do think there's a lot of that. I think government gets in its own way with procedure.