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Full disclosure of the top: I was a stock market maker for more than 20 years, first as a member of the California Arts Council, and then 17 years as a member of the Children and Families Commission of Orange County, California.
The California Arts Council relates to relatively small quantities of funds assigned by the state legislator. It was a mini-national gift for art.
On the other hand, The “Prop 10” committee of Orange County, As originally known, they distributed tens of millions of dollars in cigarette tax income annually to beneficiaries who are somehow devoted to the mission, determined by the language of the initiative approved by the voter, of “making children 0-5 and making and Making their families healthy and making them healthy and making their families healthy and ready to learn ‘by the time they started kindergarten.
Doge discovers more than 4 million government credit cards responsible for 90 million transactions
Stelling 10 was adopted by the voters of California in 1998. The brainchild of actor Rob Reiner and former Republican Rep. Michael Huffington, Prop 10 laid a load of 50 cents on each pack of cigarettes. The money raised was therefore 20% divided into the State’s Prop 10 Commission and 80% for the 58 district committees. The 80% was distributed on the basis of the population, so Los Angeles naturally got the most, but Orange County got a large piece every year.
Elon Musk leads the Ministry of Public Efficiency and must focus on the temptations of subsidy makers. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty images)
Every provincial committee had to have a majority of its members from the private sector. I lit my hand to be one of the five commissioners in the private sector in our nine committee, because that was real money that went out and I wanted to say about how it would be spent.
The “job” required two meetings per month for $ 100 per meeting without benefits or pension. (I can be one of the few people who have been subjected for the California Cair Political Practices Act for more than two decades, who have not built up a pension and who lost money at every meeting.) There was a lot of homework, but the small staff were done Up from excellent professionals, and it was the public service of the old school.
I think the Orange County committee at least did a good job – blocking and tackling things for public health, paying for school nurses, for example, providing support to new mothers with limited resources, etc. We have brought ourselves and, 10 years in, in In Bainbridge strategic advice to investigate our earlier work and our plans in the future and to suggest more efficiency. The staff was small and fantastic. We employed contractors when we could. We kept the money.
I would have liked to stay on the committee as long as I could do mathematics, but I left California for Virginia in 2016 and of course resigned. I keep an eye on it. It still does a good job because it is built to withstand the three major temptations of subsidy makers.
The first temptation is to never investigate the effectiveness of a subsidy as soon as it has been made. If the results are not followed and performance cannot be measured, it is a good gamble where they are not worth reaching to. Bainbridge took care of the external eyes, but from the first day the emphasis was on data -based results. If a program did not “work”, it went away. The first temptation of a stock market maker is never to look at what the results of previous expenses were. If doo does it At least that, good.
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The second temptation is to give your friends money. We never got close to that line because the laws in California are very strictly about self -handling, and the nine members have never admitted shy people. More importantly, by far: all subsidies were granted in public meetings. All were explained in the materials provided to the public. Making subsidies should never be done in half -light, much less in the dark.
Doge should ask Those decisions made to grant money and who looked. The scandal at the EPA seems to be the opposite approach. If you haven’t seen it yet, view the “Gold Stars of the Titanic” video of the manager Lee Zeldin. Rage $ 20 billion out of the door after an election is a recipe to give money to friends.
I lit my hand to be one of the five commissioners in the private sector in our nine committee, because that was real money that went out and I wanted to say about how it would be spent.
Finally, and most clear, is the last temptation of a stock market maker self -enrichment. It should of course be that a stock market maker should never, never give money to himself or a family member or to an organization where they expect to work. If Doge believes that federal subsidies went out to recipients where the stock market maker eventually worked … then DOGE attorney general would have to call Pam Bondi. That is not “waste, fraud and abuse.” That is probably a crime.
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The end results of Doge are difficult to predict, but the bright light it seems or promises to shine when making subsidies and other discretionary financing by federal agencies is desperately needed. Research by recipients and rules for being eligible to ensure that they are clearly understood, easily explained to applicants and made transparent has long been late. There are no “small subsidies”. Every subsidy to “A” is a subsidy that is not granted to “B.” And every subsidy that almost certainly sounds shameful is that.
Dig deep doge folk. The good stock market makers will not fear or hide anything.
Hugh Hewitt is hosted “The Hugh Hewitt Show”, heard weekday 6 am to 9 am to 9 am on the Salem Radio Network and Simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh wakes America on more than 400 affiliated companies, and on all streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the news of the Fox News Channel, organized by Bret Baier weekdays at 6 pm et. A son of Ohio and graduated from Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a professor of Law at the Fowler School of Law of Chapman University since 1996, where he teaches constitutional law. Hewitt launched his radio show from Los Angeles of the same name in 1990. Hewitt has often appeared in every important National News Television Network, organized television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American newspaper, has written a dozen books and a score of Republiekein, moderated baths, has written, Most recently in the Republican presidential debate of November 2023 in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio program and his column on the Constitution, National Security, American Politics and Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump for his 40 years in broadcast, and this column gives the main story that his radio/ TV program will stimulate today.
