Reps. Vince Fong (R-CA) and James Gallagher (R-CA) pointed to California’s unemployment system, high-speed rail project, wildfire and water policies, and regulatory costs as examples of problems they attributed to Democratic governance, including effects they said reach beyond the state.
Fong and Gallagher discussed the issues on the Republican Study Committee’s Right to the Point podcast, where Fong said the episode would examine the “three W’s — waste, water, and wildfire” and how Republicans are seeking to “cut costs for Californians and protect your taxpayer dollars from Gavin Newsom in Sacramento.”
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Gallagher, who previously served with Fong in the California State Assembly, said the two have been “fighting on the wall, in California government against Gavin Newsom and the Democratic supermajority.” Fong similarly said they were “no stranger to Democrats mismanaging our resources” and pointed to what he called “waste, fraud and abuse” in California government.
One of the first examples Gallagher raised was California’s unemployment insurance system during the coronavirus pandemic. He said the state’s Employment Development Department (EDD) reached more than “$30 billion of fraud during Covid.” Gallagher also cited “people on death row, people in prison getting these payments.”
Fong said California “sent $1 billion in unemployment benefits to those in prison and cited 32 billion in fraudulent EDD payments. He also said California borrowed more than $20 billion from the federal government during the pandemic and is “the only state right now in the union that has not paid back its unemployment debt.”
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According to Fong, the consequence is that “the payroll taxes in California are going up on every single business” to help cover the debt, while the state budget is set to spend “over $600 million just to pay the interest on the debt without paying down the principal.”
Gallagher said California’s handling of that debt was “shameful” because “they made the small businessmen pick up the tab for their fraud and their waste.” He then turned to high-speed rail, calling it a “boondoggle train” and saying the state has “spent over $15 billion” without laying “a single mile of track.”
Gallagher also said “$600,000” went to consultants for “luxury items” and “luxury visits and for memberships,” while California continued to prioritize high-speed rail funding. He said recent legislation made high-speed rail “the first priority for funding out of the cap and trade fund.”
By contrast, Gallagher said wildfire prevention was placed in “the very last tier of funding,” which he argued would mean “less money to prevent catastrophic wildfire.” Fong questioned whether another $1 billion should go toward rail, or instead toward “wildfire prevention or water storage.”
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Fong said the rail project “was supposed to be done by 2020,” was initially expected to cost $33 billion, and has now “ballooned to over $230 billion with no end in sight.”
“There’s no train, there’s no track,” he added.
Gallagher later described California as “exhibit A” for what he called “rampant fraud, mismanagement of your public dollars,” while criticizing state spending priorities in comparison with “wildfire prevention” and “water storage.”
Turning to wildfires, Gallagher said California has made progress helping communities recover but that “what we want to do is prevent these things from happening again.” He argued that public lands have accumulated vegetation that has been “allowed to grow into tinder boxes.”
“We need to get back into our forests,” Gallagher said. “We need to get back on our public lands, manage them better, remove dead and dying trees and underbrush.”
Fong likewise said, “We’ve got to manage our forests better,” and called for taking “these dead and dying trees out.” Gallagher also said wildfire prevention needs to become “an important priority” after accusing Newsom and Democrat lawmakers of reducing funding and spending it elsewhere.
The lawmakers also discussed California’s water infrastructure, with Gallagher saying greater supply requires “building new storage” and “investing in our water management infrastructure.” He said projects involving “new canals” and “new water storage projects” would “create more water abundance.”
“You can’t grow food without water,” Gallagher said, while Fong called California “the number one ag producing state in the country” and argued that farmers need “an adequate water supply” along with streamlined regulations.
The discussion then moved to California regulations that the lawmakers said affect consumers beyond the state. Fong described certain mandates as “out of touch” and “unworkable,” arguing that their costs are “rippling throughout the entire United States.”
Gallagher said regulations affecting trucking, shipping, and the movement of goods “drive up the cost of everything” in California. “But not only that, it drives up costs around the nation,” he said, arguing that repealing the rules could produce a “$2.5 billion cost savings.”
Gallagher described eliminating California mandates as “part of the pathway to lowering people’s costs,” saying the rules have “driven up our costs in California and throughout the nation.”
Fong focused on California Air Resources Board regulations affecting harbor craft and ships entering California ports, saying “40% of the containers that come into the United States come through the ports of California.” He argued that required technology was not feasible and that companies could face penalties of “$50,000 per vessel per day.”
Fong said California Air Resources Board analysis estimated the policy would cost the economy “over $2.3 billion,” adding that “those costs were going to be spread out across the country.”
“When you buy your item on Amazon, when you go to the grocery store, when you go to the gas station,” Fong said, consumers may encounter costs he attributed in part to California policy.
Gallagher described their effort as “saving California from itself and also helping Americans” get lower costs for goods, and said “at least $1.30 a gallon is just taxes, fees and regulations” imposed in California.
Fong closed by saying lawmakers need to get “back to the basics,” including prioritizing taxpayers, reviewing spending “line by line,” eliminating “waste, fraud and abuse,” and providing “real accountability.” He also said they want communities to have “affordable power and energy” and “abundant water supplies.”
