Lanhee Chen, the Republican candidate running for election for California Controller, said on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Sunday with host Joel Pollak that the Golden State needs a GOP auditor to break its “one-party monopoly” and combat the resulting tens of billions of dollars of fraud with taxpayer money.
Californians concerned about financial corruption with its state government should elect a competent Republican state controller as a “watchdog” for taxpayer dollars, Chen stated. The election for California’s state controller, he added, would be determined by the state’s worsening economic circumstances.
He remarked, “People in California look at the state of affairs, they look at the high gas prices, and the high prices for milk and everything else they need on a day-to-day basis, and they ask, ‘What’s happening in this state?'”
“The point that I make is that when you have a one-party monopoly like we’ve had in Sacramento for so long, things start to happen, and people’s money — taxpayer money — isn’t used wisely, and folks look out and they see $20 billion in fraud in the unemployment insurance system. They see $800 million dollars going to dead people in the Medi-Cal system here in California, and they say, ‘Something’s not right,'” he continued.
Chen noted that his Democrat opponent, Malia Cohen, promised to be “collaborative” with the state’s Democrats prior to releasing public financial reports if elected state controller.
“My opponent comes straight out of the Sacramento insiders’ club,” Chen said of Cohen’s ties to California’s ruling Democrats. “She actually brags about her close relationship with Gavin Newsom. She started her career as a community organizer for Gavin Newsom. In fact, in many ways, her career has been a function of being able to have those relationships with people who she’s been close to.”
Chen went on, “She brags about how, instead of giving the taxpayers of California access to audit information — instead of giving it to them first — she’d actually go to the public officials she’s auditing and give them a heads-up and say, ‘Hey, is there something we can do about this?'”
“Those are literally her words,” Chen added. He said Cohen’s “cozy relationship” with the state’s top Democrats, and promise to be “collaborative” with her own party, make her a would-be “collaborator” if elected state controller.
He stated, “That’s not what Californians need right now. During a time when our tax dollars are so precious, when the state is not spending them wisely, we don’t need a collaborator, we need a controller. We need somebody who’s going to go in and say, ‘There’s a problem here, and you’re responsible. Fix it.'”
“I just don’t think that Californians want someone who’s part of this club to be the next controller,” he emphasized. “I think they want someone who’s going to be an actual watchdog.”
Chen said, “The focus of my campaign — and it has been from day one — is, how do we give taxpayers in California accountability into how this money is spent — transparency in how this money is spent — and how do we restore some competence to government?”
“The position of California state controller is really like a watchdog job,” he said of the role of California’s top accountant and bookkeeper. “It’s the person who’s supposed to keep watch over everyone else in Sacramento, and in particular, how they’re spending taxpayer money. So this is the kind of job where you actually want someone whose political interests are different from the party in power, and that’s why I think we’ve managed to secure the support of a lot of folks here in California.”
He speculated, “I think we’ve got a great shot at winning the first statewide office for a Republican — and really, any non-Democrat — in California in almost 15 years.”
Chen linked financial mismanagement at the state level to inflation.
“The environment is very different this year, I think,” he assessed. “Given the poor job the president’s done nationally, given what we see in terms of inflation and the state of the economy, I think people view this as an economy-centered election.”
He concluded, “By the way, all of our data says that regardless of the distractions and various things that are out there, that the reality is that this is an economy-focused election, and people care deeply about what’s going on with their pocketbooks, and I think we have an environment where people want to see fiscal responsibility.”
Breitbart News Sunday broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Eastern.
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