JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon complained of the Democrats’ bureaucratic “blue tape” plaguing Southern California post-fire rebuilding efforts, claiming the left-wing officials in control want “more and more and more regulations.”
While visiting a Chase Bank location that was burned during the devastating Pacific Palisades fire in Los Angeles in January, Dimon lambasted the politicians who “have never run anything” and gave his idea on how to make the massive cleanup project more efficient:
“I’d change the name from ‘red tape’ to ‘blue tape’ because it’s the Democrats who seem to want more regulations,” the banking executive told Fox 11 Los Angeles this week.
He continued, “We need good regulations. We need good food, we need good financial systems — It’s just not more, more, and more. And you see it in everything — permitting and licensing — and there are lessons to be learned.”
According to the CEO, “You should be saying, ‘I want an efficient government,’” no matter if you are a “Democrat or Republican.”
“I would have a Palisades rebuilding building with everyone in the room. Literally — right here,” Dimon said, gesturing to the emptied-out building. He went on:
I’d have sanitation, fire, police, roads, insurance, local, state, federal government in the room with charts… Because it’s a huge management problem, and you know, government doesn’t put top people who can run projects into management. It’s too often politicians who were academics, who’ve never run anything.
The CEO’s comments came soon after developer and former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Rick Caruso wrote an op-ed warning that the city is at a “tipping point” of failure after only granting 31 rebuilding permits thus far.
Caruso, who challenged Mayor Karen Bass (D) in the 2022 election, complained of city officials’ self-congratulatory posture while major challenges are still being ignored four months after the wildfires left over 37,000 acres burned and more than 16,000 structures destroyed:
The city’s chosen language – calling this disaster recovery the “fastest in modern California history” – assumes it’s more prudent to measure the response against past disasters, rather than conducting what is really needed: a clear-eyed assessment of where the mistakes were, where management failed, and how a better process can be created so hard lessons can be learned. Their rearview mirror approach is like comparing apples to monkey wrenches because the scale and devastation of what happened in January is unprecedented, and the nature of the communities impacted are markedly different than any past examples. On numbers alone, the estimated cost of the Palisades and Eaton fires may be 15 times more than the Camp Fire, and these most recent fires destroyed 15,000 more structures than the Woolsey Fire. Rebuilding is still ongoing in Paradise and Ventura County after those fires over six years ago, which can’t be our barometer for success.
We’re at a tipping point. Instead of equating this to previous disasters, we need be forward-looking and reimagine the city’s response in a way that disaster recovery has never been done before with a focus on creativity, innovation, transparency, and accountability.
In LA, we have the best and brightest companies, executives, and workers of anywhere in the world and they’re all eager to contribute. But, instead of embracing this invaluable resource as the X-factor that can make our recovery both different and better, the city has shunned it. They don’t return calls, there hasn’t been an effort to proactively engage, and there are no signs that the city wants to leverage this wealth of knowledge and ideas to drive the response, even though it’s impossible to execute a rebuild of this size without the private sector taking a significant portion off the government’s plate.
Caruso also recently called on Bass to fire L.A. Department of Water and Power (LAWDP) CEO Janisse Quiñones on Monday, citing failure to maintain a key reservoir.
As Breitbart News and the Los Angeles Times reported in January, the Santa Ynez Reservoir above Pacific Palisades, which holds 117 million gallons, was nearly empty when the fire erupted that month.
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
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