In this episode, Tudor talks with EJ Antoni and former Secretary of Labor, Alex Acosta, about the critical role of small businesses in the U.S. economy, especially during Small Business Week. They delve into the current economic challenges, including inflation, rising costs, and the impact of government regulations. EJ highlights the detrimental effects of these regulations and stresses the importance of reversing policies that contribute to inflation. The conversations also explores the implications for younger generations, the need for balanced regulation, and the significance of creating productive jobs. The Tudor Dixon Podcast is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network. For more visit TudorDixonPodcast.com
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. This week, we
are celebrating Small Business Week. It's a time where we
get to recognize the incredible impact of thirty three point
three million small businesses across the United States. That is
a little known fact not everybody's aware of, but small
businesses make up ninety nine point nine percent of all
US businesses, so they are truly the backbone of our
(00:23):
economy and we wanted to celebrate that. We just got
back from the Job Creators Network Summit. It was an
awesome experience. While we were there, we had the opportunity
to sit down with two fantastic guests, EJ and Tony.
He is a super sharp economist from the Heritage Foundation
and the former Secretary of Labor alex Acosta. We talked
about the current state of the US economy, what we
(00:45):
should be watching for in the near future, and why
small businesses are absolutely critical to building a strong and
prosperous future. You won't want to miss these conversations. But
First Mother's Day is coming up, so I want to
highlight an organization that cares deeply for moms. That's Preborn.
Preborn's Network of Clinics exists exclusively to offer love, life
(01:08):
and support to pregnant moms who are feeling scared and
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It will not only sacrifice the life of their preborn baby,
but take a piece of their heart as well. When
a distressed mom comes to Preborn, she is welcomed with
open arms and has offered a free altarsound to hear
and see the precious life inside of her. The majority
(01:30):
of the time that mom will choose life, and this
Mother's Day, you can help bring life to both a
mom in need and an at risk baby with an ultrasound.
One ultrasound is only twenty eight dollars and five ultrasounds
are one hundred and forty dollars. Every penny goes towards
loving mothers and babies well, and when you become a
monthly sponsor, you will receive pictures and stories of the
(01:52):
lives that you help to save. So to get involved,
simply dial pound to fifty and say the keyword baby.
That's pound fifty baby, or visit preborn dot com slash dixon.
That's preborn dot com slash dixon and this is sponsored
by Preborn. We've got more coming up after this. We
(02:14):
are here at the Job Creators Network Freedom Fighter's Summit,
and I have ej Antoni with me. He is a
public finance economist I can't even speak today, and a
fellow at the Heritage Foundation. So tell us a little
bit about we're seeing some interesting things. We've been talking
a lot about the jobs report. Well, we're seeing some
(02:34):
interesting things because the leftist media is saying that we're
going to have an economic crisis on our hands. What
is your response to that.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I would love to know where the sense of alarm
has been for the last four years when we actually
have had an economic crisis.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Right, there's all this.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Talk about recession because we had a temporary dip in
GDP or gross domestic product, that's one of the statistics
we use to try to measure the size of the economy. Meanwhile,
they completely ignored the fact that you at two quarters
consecutive quarters under Biden where you had the exact same thing,
you had negative GDP growth. But somehow we completely ignored
that and change the definition of a recession. But all regardless,
(03:14):
if we talk about how are people actually doing in
the economy, which is what I care about. The macro
statistics are great, that's meaningful, But I really want to
know things like what can the average American actually buy
with their weekly paycheck?
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Right?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
What is their standard of living and what's their cost
of living? Those are the things that I think we
should track that are imployeed.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Can that really be improved? I mean, we keep hearing
people saying that once the inflation has occurred, the prices
aren't going to go down. I mean I hear people
here at the summit today talking about there is a
chance that you can actually get the prices down. Is
it getting the prices down? Is that we're going to
raise We're going to be able to raise salaries, or
there's going to be an overall economic boom, because that's
(03:54):
what I'm hearing from people on the ground. Like my
grocery bill. I have four kids. My grocery bill is
it has gone up from when before Biden took office,
it was pretty standard that I would spend three hundred
dollars at the grocery store. I am between four fifteen
five hundred every week now, and that to me is
a massive blow.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Absolutely, And so what's the solution to that. We've got
to reverse the bad public policies that caused it in
the first place, and if you reverse those policies, you'll
reverse those effects.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Ok.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
And so it's not just a.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Matter of slowing the increase in prices, but it is
a matter of actually getting those prices down. And at
the same time, we want income to keep growing. So
as long as people's incomes keep growing faster than prices are,
that's good, right, because you're getting ahead. But we want
it to be even better where the prices are going down.
We want prices down, we want interest rates down, We
want people to be able to afford a home.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Again.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I mean, this has been an absolute deadly combination where
you have not only the skyrocketing of home prices, but
also the doubling or tripling in a lot of markets
of interest rates. So now all of a sudden, you
just can't afford a home because those two things together
have doubled the monthly mortgage payment on a medium price home.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
What do you think is the public understanding of their
own economic situation? Because I do, I mean, I hear
what you're saying. I've had other people kind of counter
that with saying the youngest generation that is out there
buying homes is spending beyond their means right now as
well we have to. So you think that is because,
(05:27):
I mean, there is certainly an increase even in what
we spend because everything has kind of changed. The way
we consume television has changed because now you have to
pay for streaming and there's different and I'm not seeing
those are have tos, but it kind of is how
society is now. So how do young people look at
this and go, how do I manage my finances so
that I can get into that home?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Well, one of the reasons why we're seeing more spending
in certain categories is because people have literally given up
on savings. So why is it people are willing to
spend so much more in rent today Because.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
People are young.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
People are looking at homes and saying, I can literally
never afford that. The only chance I have of owning
a home is when is when unfortunately my parents pass
away and hopefully leave the asset to me, because I
will never actually be able to save enough to have
a big enough down payment to get the monthly payment
down where I can afford that home. And so if
I'm never going to be able to afford a home,
(06:21):
I'm just going to take all that money and rent,
which means I can rent a bigger place than I
would have if I was still trying to save for
that down payment.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
So you know, this is one of the.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Reasons why inflation is so deadly to the long term
growth prospects of an economy. It incentivizes people not to
save and to just spend their money today because that's
the only way to protect yourself from inflation.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So then what happens in twenty and thirty years when
these people all get out of the workforce and they
have new savings. I mean, what is going to be
the economic crash we see at that.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Point, Well, it's going to be all those people now
reliant on social services. But at the same time, that's
the individual level. What's happen at the macro level? The
productive base of the economy's gone because where do you
get the investment. Where do you get the plants and equipment,
Where do you get the computers and AI? All these
things require investment, which comes from savings. Well, if nobody's
(07:14):
saving anymore because it's not worth it to save, what
happens all of the again, the investment that creates the
long run. Economic growth that we so desperately need more
of goes away.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
What are the biggest things that you can have an
impact on quickly? Like when we see President Trump out
there talking about making life better for Americans, are we
talking the gas prices? I mean, when I see this
is something we've talked about quite a bit in the
state of Michigan. Because the governor feels that she can
raise the taxes on gas and then pay for roads
with that and pay for other things with taxes on gas.
(07:46):
That to me is it's the kind of the nastiest
tax you can have, right because everybody has to buy gas,
regardless of who you are, what your economic conditions are,
your situation is, you have to buy gas. Sure, So
what are the areas where like a President Trump can
come in and immediately start to lower prices. We saw
(08:07):
the egg prices. That was a big conversation. Are there
other opportunities with ag there? Is there anything else with energy?
What are the places he can have the biggest impact?
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Gasoline is a great example because even if you're not
buying gasoline, you're buying gasoline. In other words, you go
to the store and you grab an item off the
shelf got there on a vehicle, right, And so some
of the cost of what you're paying for is the fuel,
is the gas, is the diesel a lot of times,
but whatever the case, getting those energy prices down therefore
reduces prices throughout the economy. So what we're seeing with
(08:37):
Trump is through through the EPA, through ag through other
departments and agencies, they are bringing down energy prices. A
lot of that is through deregulation, and so again, as
you bring down those energy.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Prices, you reduce prices throughout the economy.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
That actually the biggest factor, and because that's something that
we've talked about a lot, I know that was always
something that was a big factor in our factory when
that we had to add on surcharges because the cost
of transportation was so expensive, the logistics portion of it.
And that's where I don't think that people are always
calculating when you are restricting the ability to move trucks
(09:14):
and to and charge them more, that ultimately gets passed on.
And that's the funny thing to me is that you
hear the Democrats go, oh my gosh, these tariffs they
get passed on to the consumer. Every time they raised
energy us every time they talked about evy mandates.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Of course the sense of alarm, right, that.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Is immediate and everything, and it's immediate, and it is
on every product because every product moves to get to
your house exactly.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
And it's such a great point.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Shootor and I would go one step further and say
energy is an input not only as energy, it's an
input in terms of products. Like we forget that most
of our synthetic fertilizer today actually comes from natural gas.
We synthesize that all that urea and other products too
from natural gaps. And so if you bring down the
(10:01):
price of natural gas, you will actually bring down one of,
if not the biggest cost input in our food supply.
And so all of a sudden you've started bringing down
food prices, not just because you've reduced the cost of
getting the food to the consumer, but you've reduced again
one of the key inputs.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
That's something that we also don't talk about enough is
the amount of use petroleum has, whether it's your toothbrush
or your soup. Every manufacturing processes so many have used
oil in some way, use that petroleum in some way,
and that's something that people are like We've got to
get away from all of this. I mean, I think
(10:40):
that the famous story everyone was it Patagonia which or
north Face which company was that was like, we're going
to do nothing with big oil anymore. And they're like,
how do you think you like here?
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Exactly? Now you have Paulia. Where did polyester fibers come from? Sorry,
but you don't find those in nature, right, we need
to take these petrochemicals to create that. Absolutely, And this
goes back to what you were saying about about deregulation,
where regulation has imposed such severe costs in the economy,
and if you can repeal those regulations, you reduce those
(11:12):
costs essentially without having to do anything.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
It is all gained.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
As opposed to other areas of the economy, where you
can make an argument that, look, to bring these prices
down is going to require, let's say a lot of investment.
It's going to require some short term pain for long
term gain. When you deregulate, there's basically no pain at all.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
It is permanently deregulate, because we've seen the president and
he has been executive orders all of this stuff. But
how do you convince the government? And I say this
because this is on the Republican and the Democrat side
where we see lawmakers like to make.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Laws, yes, very much, so the.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Nonsen should like to get rid of laws as much
as they like to make them.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Sure, and look, there are no If you're looking for
a permanent, perfect fix, sorry it it doesn't exist.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
I wish it did.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
We got to wait for it to get on the
other side of eternity to see that right, to see
any kind of permanency in terms of these good things.
But we can make a lot of moves today that
will make it more difficult to regulate in the future.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
You know, things like get scared right now because they
think that regulation is safety. There's a confusion between regulation
and safety because they the Democrats have been very good
at telling people if you're not regulated, then you're doing
something to hurt the environment. That terrifies me. Sure, but
these regulations, so many regulations now, they have nothing to
(12:31):
do with that. It is and oftentimes it's a group
lobbying to make it harder for the little guy so
that you know, like big sugar, it'll all go to them,
it won't go to the other guy. There's so much
behind the scenes of government, Can you kind of like
break that down a little bit?
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Sure? Sure?
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
So so often when we talk about cutting regulation, we're
talking about cutting burdens from regulation, right as you know,
We're not talking about getting rid of the regulations that
are going to protect the consumer. The problem is the
vast majority of regulations don't protect the consumer. Right when
we look at, for example, the whole push to break
up Google today, that is coming from Google's competitors, not
(13:08):
from any kind of consumers group or consumers union.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
It's because they all want to The competitors want to
divide up Google so that they can buy the pieces.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
People want to buy Chrome, they want to buy the browser,
they want to buy the search engine, they want to
buy the data from Google Maps, et cetera. So well, again,
when we talk about cutting regulation, we're talking about getting
rid of the rules that don't actually protect the consumer.
They're there to supposedly protect the consumer, but they don't
fulfill that mission. A lot of things like the energy
requirements on home appliances are a very good example of that.
(13:41):
There's a reason why you need to wash your clothes
two three times, why you need to run your dishwasher
two three times, same thing with your clothes dryer.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
We found out something interesting about the disrupture, which I
just want to share because it has changed my life
in the last week. So apparently the dishwashers they have
to have these energy saving requirements on the normal wash,
so if you use any of the other washes on
your dishwrusher. Because I was laining to one of the
guys that his kids go to our school and they
(14:11):
do appliances, and I was like, my dishwasher never dries
my dishes alt away, so annoying. I have to bring
them out and dry them. And he was like, that's
because of these energy efficient requirements, he said, but we
don't have some kit them on the heavy wash or
the lightwash. I never have to dry them. I mean,
I'm totally shocked by this, but how stupid that you
have this small regulation that makes that. I mean, not
(14:33):
that I can't dry my dishes, but it's just like
you expect a machine to work a certain way, and
then I find out if I just puts a different button,
it's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
It's crazy, but you're still stuck paying the higher cost
for that appliance, so that the appliance has to be
built in such a way to try to use half
the water it used to and less electricity than it
used to. And so the result is a much higher
upfront ball. So even if you do have those kinds
of work rounds that you're talking about again, the consumer
(15:03):
is still stuck paying that higher upfront cost.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
And when we look at the four years.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Of the Biden administration, the regulatory compliance costs average out
to about ten thousand dollars. Actually, it's over ten thousand
dollars for a typical American household. It's absolutely insane, and
so you're stuck having to do all these kinds of
workarounds that you're describing to you to try and reduce
your cost.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Brain when your car shuts off at the stoplight, you
have to what it reminds me. I'm like, that's a
metaphor for annoying regulations, you know, like why do I
have to do this every time to get my card
at an OPTOD.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
It's worse than annoying because in instances like that, what
you're doing is you're constantly allowing the engine temperature to
drop slightly that actually hurts the long run life of
your car because you now have you're now constantly putting
the engine back into condition where it's not it's not
operating at peak efficiency, believe it or not.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
And also it's increasing wear and tear.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
So again to.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Mention it to the company, like are we wearing out
cars faster? I mean, everybody says nothing lasts as long
as it used to, but it's really true, nothing lasts as.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Long because because we're trying to meet all these insane
emissions requirements. Right, that's the reason your engine can't idle
at a red light anymore.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
It's because you are.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
You need to be able to essentially cut any emissions
anywhere possible.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
It's why cars don't accelerate as well as they used to. Right.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
We can't have the same performance that we did in
years past because the manufacturers are doing anything and everything
they can to reduce those emissions. It's also why so
many vehicles are going hybrid today, which you know, you
can make the argument that's good for the consumer because
you're using less fuel and everything.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
It's more efficient.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
I get that, but it's a much higher upfront cost
than a lot of families just can't afford. So a
lot of families are having to keep older cars longer.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
And the scary thing there is you're keeping.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
A car on the road longer that's less safe than
the car as we make today. Right, they don't have
all of the new standards when it comes to safety,
but for the sake of emission standards, you're starting to.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
But also for years, like in Michigan, you get so
many rebates if you buy an electric vehicle, so for
years that people who are struggling along with their older car,
their taxpayer dollars are to pay a rich person to
go off because even with the rebates can't afford it.
I mean, you just can't afford to go out and
buy one of these cars, even with the rebates. So
the person who is struggling along with their old car
(17:28):
is paying for the rich person to drive their brand
new eb It's crazy to think that this is what
these are the Democrat policies. But why don't people see this?
Speaker 2 (17:37):
I think because conversations like this don't make it into
the mainstream media. Right the mainstream media, they have their
talking points from the left and they run with thick
and it is good. I think that podcasts and alternative
media is really gaining steam against mainstream media and that
really is a dying medium, which again is good because
(17:58):
it means there isn't the same stre angle hold on
the truth anymore or lies, I should say, right, and
now the truth can actually get out again through conversations
like this.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
How can reducing these regulations to so let's this will
be my last question. But as we see President Trump
kind of increasing the jobs and we're seeing these small
wins that are going to turn into big wins, how
does this really free up the time? Well?
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Good, good question.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
I like to say that taxes are a penalty on
economic activity that's happening.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Regulations are a penalty on economic activity that never gets
to happen. In other words, taxes.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Cause don it's going to have to record less. Oh wait, Rana,
there you go.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Taxes cause you to pay for what you're buying, what
you're selling for property that you own. What regulation does
is it prevents any of that from even happening, right.
It prevents the job from being created, It prevents you
from selling a product, It prevents you as the consumer
from getting that product or service in the first place.
And so as you start to not only reduce taxes
which increases economic activity, but reduce that burns some ineffective
(19:07):
regulation that causes an even bigger increase in economic activity.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
There. You made me think a couple of years ago,
we our taxpayer state taxpayer dollars went into the budget
and there was a county in Michigan that got a
cricket field. I don't fight cricket. I mean, I don't
know a lot of people that play cricket. This is
something that a certain community apparently wanted in this county.
But instead of having the county pay for it, instead
(19:33):
of going to the county and having the beause then
it's like more obvious, you know what it's going to
The county has to get their community to go, yes,
we want this, even though we're not going to use
it. It gets kind of sneaked into the state budget. Then
we're all paying for a million dollars for a cricket
field that could have gone into education, that could have
gone into rhoades. These are the things that I think
are also you have to be aware of and you
(19:55):
have to have and this is kind of what Republicans
are exposing right now. There's a massive amount of it's
just I know I said I wouldn't keep going, but
that's okay, No, just keep reminding me of thing.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
And DOZE has been absolutely invaluable here. So in the
last GDP report, we saw a government spending fell by
about a quarter of a percentage point, which I know
that doesn't sound like a lot, but it's progress.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
That's huge.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
After the explosion and government purchases that we saw under Biden,
government purchases have now declined, and about ninety seven or
ninety percent of that decrease is directly attributable to the cost.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Savings from DOZE in the first three months of this year.
I mean, that's phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
This is a group of what a dozen people, and
they're identifying all the kinds of waste that you're talking
about to you or whether it's the abuse, the corruption,
the fraud, the waste, whatever the case may be, they're
finding it.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
They're going through the budget with a fine toothed home and.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
They're looking at all these crazy examples of why are
we wasting tax pair dollars on A, B and C.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
There's no reaching.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Back and say a quarter point that's nothing. No, we're
talking billions. When you're in this kind of this kind
of money, when you're talking trillions of dollars even, I mean,
you have to start somewhere. That's what frustrates the name
with people when they are just like, oh, this is
not enough. It is we just get to keep going.
You gotta starty something. Well, thank you so much. I
really appreciate having you on today. It's been a great
(21:13):
conversation and it's been great to be here at the
Job Greaters Network Freedom Fighters Summit. It's been amazing. Eg Antony,
thank you my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Many thanks to EJ and Tooni for joining us. And
coming up next is the twenty seventh Secretary of Labor
for the United States, Alex Acosta, will join us to
discuss the state of small business in the US. Stay tuned.
We are here at the Job Creators Network Freedom Fighters
Summit and I have Secretary Acosta with me. You are
(21:45):
the twenty seventh Labor Secretary. This is a very interesting
time we're at in the United States. It's a wonderful time,
and it is a wonderful time and so I'm so
glad that you're here to talk to us about it
because this is your expertise. Obviously, today this we're we
are recording this ahead of time, but today here at
the summit, while we're here, the Job's report came out
(22:08):
and I was like, you know, Secretary alex Acosta, this
is the guy he will know about this. And then
you were like, you said that to me, and you
must have heard what I said. I didn't, So I'm
really excited to hear what you have to say about it,
because I think it's very interesting.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
So we're just talking about deregulation and how much President
Trump is doing in deregulation, and you know, I think
sometimes Americans have a hard time understanding what it means
to say ten billion versus twenty billion versus you know,
half a trillion, because it's just so so so much.
The numbers are so big. What does it mean? And
so I wanted to break it down because the job's
(22:42):
numbers just came out this morning, and I think the
jobs number offer an interesting view into what deregulation means.
And so last year, our economy generated one and a
half million jobs, which is good, but let's talk about
what that meant. Four one hundred thousand of those jobs
were government jobs. So out of the one and a
(23:03):
half million. Four hundred thousand were government jobs.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
It's like a third of the job.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Nine hundred thousand new government jobs, new net new government jobs. Good, great,
well third of the jobs, give or take. You know,
we're new net government jobs. Nine hundred thousand is what
I'll call government adjacent jobs. And what by government adjacent
I mean healthcare services.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
And education services.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
We didn't get a lot more new teachers, we didn't
get a lot more doctors and nurses. We got more
hospital administrators. I was talking to someone in the audience
that said, you know, that's fascinating because I worked at
a hospital and we had to hire an army of
compliance specialists to comply with the new insurance rules, and
we actually had to fire healthcare staff because of the regulations.
(23:50):
So nine hundred thousand jobs to comply with healthcare and
education oversight.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
So that makes sense because in Michigan, the after COVID,
the governor enacted this racial bias testing that had to
occur in all of our hospitals. So then you had
to hire a lot of people to administer the racial
bias testing, and then people did get fired because they
had to spend so much money on the racial bias testing.
And then these people took these tests and they said
(24:18):
they were incredibly insulting because they said, we don't we
don't judge whether or not we are going to treat
somebody based on the race. This is ridiculous. What a
waste of money?
Speaker 3 (24:27):
You treat them because they're a person.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
That's right, yes, right.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
And so they actually let go of nurses and healthcare
staff to hire compliance and regulatory folks and called bureaucracy.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Right, So nine hundred.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
Thousand of those jobs went to healthcare and education throcs.
And what that meant was only two hundred thousand netnew jobs,
where like folks doing things like making things right, you know,
not not government workers adding tiber, not you know, bureaucrats
in the hospitals, but you know, actual doctors and nurses
(25:06):
and teachers and manufacturers.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
And that's what I was going to say. When you
think about people who make I come from the foundry world,
So I was a maker of things, you know, and
there's some certain pride in making things. And that is
what we keep hearing from Donald Trump is we've got
to get back to he said just in Michigan this week,
those three beautiful words I love to hear made in America.
(25:30):
You know, that's what we want, and.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
That's what we wanted.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
So out of the one and a half million jobs
created last year, only two hundred thousand we're outside of
government or government Jason Sectors.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
That's shocking.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
Now, let's talk about this year so far since President
Trump took office. The new job numbers were out this morning,
one hundred and seventy seven thousand, better than expected. That's
good news, that's great news. But here's what I love
about it. We've already created two hundred thousand since some
President Trump took office, thousand jobs making things and doing
(26:05):
things and doing something that's not a government job.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Right.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
We've only created in gut. When I say government, I
mean federal, state and local. But federal, state and local.
This year, we've created twenty thousand jobs, not four hundred
thousand jobs, right. And so the jobs that are being
created are the private sector jobs that pay really well,
that increase our economy, that increase our our lifestyle, that
(26:32):
make us happier, right, that make us healthier, that make
us better educated.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
That's what we want in this economy.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
I heard Senator Earned saying that these are the types
of jobs that free up the economy. And I thought
that was that was something that was very profound because
we don't think about the government jobs. They stifle the economy.
That is, if you are creating more government, it is
to stop business from being free. If you are creating
manufact if you're creating jobs where people do things, if
(27:02):
you're creating actual jobs for nurses and doctors, that is
freeing up the economy.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
To take your hospital example in Michigan, you know, the
hospital's purpose is to make people healthier. You're not making
them healthier by creating more compliance specialists and letting go
of nurses. You're making them healthier by hiring more nurses
take care of all people.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So the question is that why did
the Biden administration make so many government jobs. I think
that's what people don't understand and they don't see it.
This is one of the things that we're going to
talk about the economy later and whether or not we
need to raise taxes or we're overspending, which obviously we
are overspending, but the American people don't necessarily see that
(27:45):
every day because they don't see these special interest groups
that are like, oh, we're going to spend for you know,
to make sure that people are having diversity in the
workplace in Serbia. Why are we spending that kind of money?
So how do you get how does this translate into
talking to.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
The American So I think there are a few things
on the table.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
First, it's easiest to create a government job because all
you have to do is write a check, right, And
so you know, if you're worried about how the economy
is doing, you're going into an election and you're worried
about how is the economy doing, and your President Biden,
you can say, let's create a bunch of government jobs.
And now, all of a sudden, the job numbers look better.
All of a sudden, you have government workers that are
(28:24):
going to vote for you because you just gave them
a job. The country's not healthier. It's not the right
thing to do in the long run, but it's the
easy fix. It's the sugar fix. It's sort of like,
you know, we have kids and sometimes you're trying to
do five things and you know your your child wants
to have some cake, and you're like, okay, go ahead
and have that cake. That's not the right move. That's
(28:45):
not the healthy move.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
But it's the easiest.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
We've all done that, right, you know, I'll have a
six year old and so so, yeah, it's the sugar fix,
and I think that's part of it. The other part
of it is, I think genuinely there's a difference between
Democrats and Republicans and how they look at things. I
think democrats genuinely believe that the government should tell you
(29:10):
how you know, how to do things. You see this,
for example, with the vaccine mandate. You see this with
so many other things where you know, they want to
empower government workers to come up with rules to govern
your life. And I think conservatives people say, look, it's
my life, you know, I know, and I should know
(29:31):
what's best for me, and if not, I'm going to
learn from it. And so I want to make my
own decisions. And that creates a whole different, you know,
approach to how big government should be.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
So it's interesting because I posted something about AOC and
how bad her policies are and the amount of comments
that I got back saying government should take care of us,
that she is there to make sure government takes care
of us, and how did we get here? Were there
is a vast amount of the population that believes that
government is there to make sure that you have the
(30:04):
necessities like roads, that you have the necessities like police
and fire, that you have the necessities like education, is
actually that they should care for you. That has never
been the thought process of the United States. But we're
going that direction.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
Wait, we are going that way, and we're replacing the
role of family with government. Right, that's right, and and
and that and that's so dangerous, you know. And so
a lot of these regulations that the liberals come out
with is to replace family. It's you know, it's to
replace community caring for someone with the government check. But
(30:39):
that's really not caring that that that's another form of
that sugar, you know, high instead of us going through
the effort of you know, yesterday, one of the guests
here was sitting on the floor and someone brought a
share to her right away, right. And what's interesting is
someone actually went through the effort of going and finding
(31:00):
a chair and coming back and saying, sit on a chair,
not befloor. It wasn't let's call the hotel staff and
let's engage the hotel bureaucracy, you know, to help this woman.
And so I think at a big picture the differences.
The Democrats want to have a safety staff that will
then find the right, you know, the right safety mechanism
(31:23):
for the woman to get off the floor. The conservative
view is an older lady just felt, let's get her
a chair so she's not sitting on the steps.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
So this is interesting because in high schools right now,
there is a push in at least in the state
of Michigan to put these health clinics in high school
so that it's whole of care, full of childcare. So
the child goes to the school, they at some point
are dismissed to the health clinic for their annual checkup.
They get their vaccinations there. That's all of a sudden
(31:55):
something that to me is very family personal that now
is going to be at the school. You've got a
lot of administrative work to manage the chech And in Michigan,
we don't have control of our child's healthcare record after
the age of twelve at all. They have to sign
medical proxy over to their parents and I can still
only see a certain amount of their tests and their
(32:15):
results because they get total consult of their healthcare after twelve,
which is outrageous that now this is like we're going
to take all of that out of the family, We're
going to put that all in the schools. But the
interesting thing to me is that there is no accountability
in the schools for actual education. We're forty first in
(32:35):
the nation for literacy and for education, so we're a
disaster right when it comes to actually holding the schools
accountable for what they are meant to do. There is
no push to see that these kids can do school
extracurricular activities like football and basketball and those things. And
yet there have been many studies that have shown that
(32:57):
if kids are engaged in a sport or a club
and that requires them to do well in school, that
will lift the entire school because if you see the
jocks having to actually attain a certain GPA. When did
we get to the point where we take away the
things that are the core part of what we provide
(33:18):
to students and we try to create the family around
the kid in the school. This is scary.
Speaker 4 (33:24):
Well, you know, I wasn't aware of the Michigan statute,
and I think it's frightening because what's happening there is
the school is replacing the parents, the school.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
What you're telling me is that parents.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
Literally after twelve have no control over the child's healthcare
unless the child signs it, and that the school wants
to take over that child's healthcare.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
And that's just wrong.
Speaker 4 (33:50):
It's another form of the government replacing the family. Yeah, right,
And you know, it's quite literally a step toward a
brave new world where where where the schools become the parent.
I think one of the problems, and one of the
issues is and I'll say you know, I think I
think folks that go into teaching love children, that they
(34:12):
want to do the right thing. But we've lost humility.
We've lost the sense of our job is to teach
and it stops there. We've lost the humility to say
we are not the all. Yes, we've lost the humility
to say we need to respect parents in this right
because they were the parents. They are the primary educator
(34:33):
and caregiver and moral teacher, and our job is to
support the parents by teaching math and writing in English.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
The idea, the Hillary Clinton statement of it takes a
village to raise a child went to a different level.
She took that too, we want your child and it
needs to not be the family that was the scary thing.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
That is scary.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
And you know, let's let's start with family first, right right, Yes,
you know, and if you look at all the studies
the family, a family structure is the most important thing
for a child, and the schools cannot replace that. And
having health clinics, you know, having the schools control a
child's healthcare cannot replace them.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
So I want to jump quickly to the unions because
that's something that I'm sure you dealt with heavily. That's
something that Donald Trump when he was on the campaign trail,
he was talking to the union's quite a bit. The
interesting thing is, I just want to know, Donald Trump
just announced that he's going to bring new fighter jets
to Selfridge Air Force Base that there were We're going
(35:36):
to make sure that that continues in the state of Michigan.
Joe Biden had that opportunity. He flew into that base
just to go walk the picket line with the UAW,
But the auto workers didn't actually come out and vote
for him. The UAW the leaders were not fans of
President Trump when he was running. Suddenly they're changing their tune.
(35:56):
They kind of like the terror of situation.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
Well, they're changing their tune because as their members are
changing their.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Toom, let's so they should listen to their.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
Per and they need to listen to their members or
they can be voted out.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
You know. Look, I mean the.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
Problem is that the union leadership, the afl CIO leadership
in Washington is just a large extent in arm of
the Democratic Party. And you know the President Biden went
and who walked to took a line and all that,
and it was a political stunt, That's what it was.
Let's call it. It was a political stunt.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Of course it was good. It was a good picture
for someone who couldn't go go out and give a speech.
Speaker 4 (36:31):
Yeah, and it was a good picture for someone that
wanted to say, you're a union person, you should vote
for me, because I want to pick it line. But ultimately,
you know, if you've been around President Trump, you know
he you know, he grew up at construction sites, he
grew up talking to workers. He understands the worker. You know,
I'd like to sometimes say he's a billionaire that understands
(36:54):
more about most American workers than many millionaires do.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Right.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
You know, he could isolate himself, but he doesn't. I've
seen him go and give give talks. You know, I've
seen him go to a Vegas hotel to give a
speech and on the way he'll stop and he'll talk
to the restaurant workers. You know, he'll talk to the
guys in the elevator. He likes it. This is who
he is and you can't fake that, right and when
(37:21):
he goes. You know, I was with him when he
visited a caterpillar site. I think it was a caterpillar set.
There are a bunch of caterpillar tractors there. The men
and women sense that. They scent how much he likes
talking to the workers, and he cares about the workers.
And that translates for the UAW and for Michigan in
that he wants cars made right here in America.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
You know, if he was here, he.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
Said, those big, beautiful cars made right here, you know,
with American hands. And he gets that, why did we
send them out? You know, we're making them abroad, not
because we can't make them here, but because the regulations
make it so hard and expensive to make them here.
(38:04):
We're talking inside about how we will mine or in
the United States, you know, because of environmental regulations, we
can't process it here, so We'll put it on a
boat that uses a lot of oil to ship it
to China, to process it in a factory in China
that is certainly not a green factory to the world
(38:28):
in the same world. Right to then put it on
another boat to ship it right back to the United States?
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Is process steel? Right?
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Is that really green? Are we really helping the environment?
Are we just pushing jobs out of America?
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Right? And then that's the thing, like I said, that
people can't they can't break that down in their heads.
But you said something I have not thought about this
in two years. There is truly a difference between Donald
Trump as a leader and as a business owner than
other people. And I come from like I said, we
(39:00):
had a foundry and I was on the shop floor
every day because it was you know, my job was
to communicate between the customers and the shop floor. I
had to be down there. I had to be helping
to move parts. You know, I was interacting every single day.
I met an owner of a company when I was campaigning.
You know, you meet with all these people who are
interested in he's the governor. Then he looked at me
(39:22):
and he said, I go to my factories once a
month and I walk on the shop floor and all
the people look at me and they feel so good
to think that I'm willing to step out on the
shop floor. And I was like, no, they don't that
because that attitude is so different than Donald Trump. And
I think that is what people see you, right, And
I've never really put my finger on it, but that
(39:44):
is what when they see President Trump, they know he
actually cares when you're around him, if you are with
him in person, you see it. That was the key
to him being successful was continuing to go back and
in his.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Heart, he's not a politician. In his heart, he's not
someone that went up through the elected system. In his heart,
he's a businessman that knows that the folks that worked
for him, that built his buildings actually built them. Yes,
And he gets that and it translates into how he relates,
(40:19):
and it translates into how he thinks.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
And that's why, at the end of the day, so.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
Many men and women, you know, even though the union
leadership did not endorse President Trump, so many men and
women of labor actually voted for him because they know
he will have their back.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
So give us a prediction before you go of what
happens in this presidential term, and how does that change
the country Because we're seeing him with a lot of
executive actions. We're seeing him lowering costs and taking out regulations.
But can we get the Congress on board to make
that permanent?
Speaker 4 (40:50):
So I think the Congress will come on board. I
think we're going to see. You know, we don't talk
nearly enough about the upcoming tax build and how important
it is to make those tax cuts permanent because the
last thing we need now is the tax is going
up because the tax cuts weren't made permanent, right, and
so we desperately need that.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
I think you're going to see that happen. You know.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
I think the biggest challenge right now that we have
is the economy is shifting, right. We see this in
the jobs numbers where we started. You know, so far
this year we've already created more private sector jobs than
all of last year combined. That's crazy, which is great news, right,
But you see that shift away from you know, a
(41:31):
lot of the other jobs, away from the government, jobs,
away from the government adjacent jobs, and that creates disruption,
and the tariffs create disruption, and you're starting to see
that a little bit in the GDP numbers, and there's
pushback on that, and we just need to realize we're
going through a transition and we need a little bit
of patience. And I think once it's done, you're going
(41:53):
to see the economy boom because these small business jobs
that have been created are the ones that last and
the ones that are right there in your community. They're
not the ones that get shipped overseas.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
That's interesting because there is a lot of pushback right now,
and I think there's a lot of fear surrounding some
of these news reports that like, oh, this is crazy,
the stock market's fluctuating, this is a problem, but you
see a positive out But.
Speaker 4 (42:17):
Look, I'm just looking at the data. We've created more
private sector jobs.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
You know, like the science.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
It's a science, you know, it's not the science.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
It's it's just numbers, right, I'm not it's not opinion.
The bottom line is one hundred and seventy thousand, seventy
seven thousand new jobs. And for the first time in
a long time, you know, government jobs weren't a big
chunk of that. It was a really small chunk and
that's good for all.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Of us in the log I love it well. Thank
you so much, Secretary alex Acosta. I appreciate having you on.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
I appreciate your time.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Thank you for joining me on the Tutor Dixon Podcast.
For this episode and others, go to Tutor disonpodcast dot com.
You can subscribe right there, or head over to the
iHeartRadio app, apple Pie or wherever you get your podcasts
and join us next time on the Tutor Dixon Podcast.
Have a blessed it
Welcome back to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. This week, we
are celebrating Small Business Week. It's a time where we
get to recognize the incredible impact of thirty three point
three million small businesses across the United States. That is
a little known fact not everybody's aware of, but small
businesses make up ninety nine point nine percent of all
US businesses, so they are truly the backbone of our
(00:23):
economy and we wanted to celebrate that. We just got
back from the Job Creators Network Summit. It was an
awesome experience. While we were there, we had the opportunity
to sit down with two fantastic guests, EJ and Tony.
He is a super sharp economist from the Heritage Foundation
and the former Secretary of Labor alex Acosta. We talked
about the current state of the US economy, what we
(00:45):
should be watching for in the near future, and why
small businesses are absolutely critical to building a strong and
prosperous future. You won't want to miss these conversations. But
First Mother's Day is coming up, so I want to
highlight an organization that cares deeply for moms. That's Preborn.
Preborn's Network of Clinics exists exclusively to offer love, life
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and support to pregnant moms who are feeling scared and
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of the time that mom will choose life, and this
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mom in need and an at risk baby with an ultrasound.
One ultrasound is only twenty eight dollars and five ultrasounds
are one hundred and forty dollars. Every penny goes towards
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lives that you help to save. So to get involved,
simply dial pound to fifty and say the keyword baby.
That's pound fifty baby, or visit preborn dot com slash dixon.
That's preborn dot com slash dixon and this is sponsored
by Preborn. We've got more coming up after this. We
(02:14):
are here at the Job Creators Network Freedom Fighter's Summit,
and I have ej Antoni with me. He is a
public finance economist I can't even speak today, and a
fellow at the Heritage Foundation. So tell us a little
bit about we're seeing some interesting things. We've been talking
a lot about the jobs report. Well, we're seeing some
(02:34):
interesting things because the leftist media is saying that we're
going to have an economic crisis on our hands. What
is your response to that.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I would love to know where the sense of alarm
has been for the last four years when we actually
have had an economic crisis.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Right, there's all this.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Talk about recession because we had a temporary dip in
GDP or gross domestic product, that's one of the statistics
we use to try to measure the size of the economy. Meanwhile,
they completely ignored the fact that you at two quarters
consecutive quarters under Biden where you had the exact same thing,
you had negative GDP growth. But somehow we completely ignored
that and change the definition of a recession. But all regardless,
(03:14):
if we talk about how are people actually doing in
the economy, which is what I care about. The macro
statistics are great, that's meaningful, But I really want to
know things like what can the average American actually buy
with their weekly paycheck?
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Right?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
What is their standard of living and what's their cost
of living? Those are the things that I think we
should track that are imployeed.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Can that really be improved? I mean, we keep hearing
people saying that once the inflation has occurred, the prices
aren't going to go down. I mean I hear people
here at the summit today talking about there is a
chance that you can actually get the prices down. Is
it getting the prices down? Is that we're going to
raise We're going to be able to raise salaries, or
there's going to be an overall economic boom, because that's
(03:54):
what I'm hearing from people on the ground. Like my
grocery bill. I have four kids. My grocery bill is
it has gone up from when before Biden took office,
it was pretty standard that I would spend three hundred
dollars at the grocery store. I am between four fifteen
five hundred every week now, and that to me is
a massive blow.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Absolutely, And so what's the solution to that. We've got
to reverse the bad public policies that caused it in
the first place, and if you reverse those policies, you'll
reverse those effects.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Ok.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
And so it's not just a.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Matter of slowing the increase in prices, but it is
a matter of actually getting those prices down. And at
the same time, we want income to keep growing. So
as long as people's incomes keep growing faster than prices are,
that's good, right, because you're getting ahead. But we want
it to be even better where the prices are going down.
We want prices down, we want interest rates down, We
want people to be able to afford a home.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Again.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I mean, this has been an absolute deadly combination where
you have not only the skyrocketing of home prices, but
also the doubling or tripling in a lot of markets
of interest rates. So now all of a sudden, you
just can't afford a home because those two things together
have doubled the monthly mortgage payment on a medium price home.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
What do you think is the public understanding of their
own economic situation? Because I do, I mean, I hear
what you're saying. I've had other people kind of counter
that with saying the youngest generation that is out there
buying homes is spending beyond their means right now as
well we have to. So you think that is because,
(05:27):
I mean, there is certainly an increase even in what
we spend because everything has kind of changed. The way
we consume television has changed because now you have to
pay for streaming and there's different and I'm not seeing
those are have tos, but it kind of is how
society is now. So how do young people look at
this and go, how do I manage my finances so
that I can get into that home?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Well, one of the reasons why we're seeing more spending
in certain categories is because people have literally given up
on savings. So why is it people are willing to
spend so much more in rent today Because.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
People are young.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
People are looking at homes and saying, I can literally
never afford that. The only chance I have of owning
a home is when is when unfortunately my parents pass
away and hopefully leave the asset to me, because I
will never actually be able to save enough to have
a big enough down payment to get the monthly payment
down where I can afford that home. And so if
I'm never going to be able to afford a home,
(06:21):
I'm just going to take all that money and rent,
which means I can rent a bigger place than I
would have if I was still trying to save for
that down payment.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
So you know, this is one of the.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Reasons why inflation is so deadly to the long term
growth prospects of an economy. It incentivizes people not to
save and to just spend their money today because that's
the only way to protect yourself from inflation.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So then what happens in twenty and thirty years when
these people all get out of the workforce and they
have new savings. I mean, what is going to be
the economic crash we see at that.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Point, Well, it's going to be all those people now
reliant on social services. But at the same time, that's
the individual level. What's happen at the macro level? The
productive base of the economy's gone because where do you
get the investment. Where do you get the plants and equipment,
Where do you get the computers and AI? All these
things require investment, which comes from savings. Well, if nobody's
(07:14):
saving anymore because it's not worth it to save, what
happens all of the again, the investment that creates the
long run. Economic growth that we so desperately need more
of goes away.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
What are the biggest things that you can have an
impact on quickly? Like when we see President Trump out
there talking about making life better for Americans, are we
talking the gas prices? I mean, when I see this
is something we've talked about quite a bit in the
state of Michigan. Because the governor feels that she can
raise the taxes on gas and then pay for roads
with that and pay for other things with taxes on gas.
(07:46):
That to me is it's the kind of the nastiest
tax you can have, right because everybody has to buy gas,
regardless of who you are, what your economic conditions are,
your situation is, you have to buy gas. Sure, So
what are the areas where like a President Trump can
come in and immediately start to lower prices. We saw
(08:07):
the egg prices. That was a big conversation. Are there
other opportunities with ag there? Is there anything else with energy?
What are the places he can have the biggest impact?
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Gasoline is a great example because even if you're not
buying gasoline, you're buying gasoline. In other words, you go
to the store and you grab an item off the
shelf got there on a vehicle, right, And so some
of the cost of what you're paying for is the fuel,
is the gas, is the diesel a lot of times,
but whatever the case, getting those energy prices down therefore
reduces prices throughout the economy. So what we're seeing with
(08:37):
Trump is through through the EPA, through ag through other
departments and agencies, they are bringing down energy prices. A
lot of that is through deregulation, and so again, as
you bring down those energy.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Prices, you reduce prices throughout the economy.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
That actually the biggest factor, and because that's something that
we've talked about a lot, I know that was always
something that was a big factor in our factory when
that we had to add on surcharges because the cost
of transportation was so expensive, the logistics portion of it.
And that's where I don't think that people are always
calculating when you are restricting the ability to move trucks
(09:14):
and to and charge them more, that ultimately gets passed on.
And that's the funny thing to me is that you
hear the Democrats go, oh my gosh, these tariffs they
get passed on to the consumer. Every time they raised
energy us every time they talked about evy mandates.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Of course the sense of alarm, right, that.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Is immediate and everything, and it's immediate, and it is
on every product because every product moves to get to
your house exactly.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
And it's such a great point.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Shootor and I would go one step further and say
energy is an input not only as energy, it's an
input in terms of products. Like we forget that most
of our synthetic fertilizer today actually comes from natural gas.
We synthesize that all that urea and other products too
from natural gaps. And so if you bring down the
(10:01):
price of natural gas, you will actually bring down one of,
if not the biggest cost input in our food supply.
And so all of a sudden you've started bringing down
food prices, not just because you've reduced the cost of
getting the food to the consumer, but you've reduced again
one of the key inputs.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
That's something that we also don't talk about enough is
the amount of use petroleum has, whether it's your toothbrush
or your soup. Every manufacturing processes so many have used
oil in some way, use that petroleum in some way,
and that's something that people are like We've got to
get away from all of this. I mean, I think
(10:40):
that the famous story everyone was it Patagonia which or
north Face which company was that was like, we're going
to do nothing with big oil anymore. And they're like,
how do you think you like here?
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Exactly? Now you have Paulia. Where did polyester fibers come from? Sorry,
but you don't find those in nature, right, we need
to take these petrochemicals to create that. Absolutely, And this
goes back to what you were saying about about deregulation,
where regulation has imposed such severe costs in the economy,
and if you can repeal those regulations, you reduce those
(11:12):
costs essentially without having to do anything.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
It is all gained.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
As opposed to other areas of the economy, where you
can make an argument that, look, to bring these prices
down is going to require, let's say a lot of investment.
It's going to require some short term pain for long
term gain. When you deregulate, there's basically no pain at all.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
It is permanently deregulate, because we've seen the president and
he has been executive orders all of this stuff. But
how do you convince the government? And I say this
because this is on the Republican and the Democrat side
where we see lawmakers like to make.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Laws, yes, very much, so the.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Nonsen should like to get rid of laws as much
as they like to make them.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Sure, and look, there are no If you're looking for
a permanent, perfect fix, sorry it it doesn't exist.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
I wish it did.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
We got to wait for it to get on the
other side of eternity to see that right, to see
any kind of permanency in terms of these good things.
But we can make a lot of moves today that
will make it more difficult to regulate in the future.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
You know, things like get scared right now because they
think that regulation is safety. There's a confusion between regulation
and safety because they the Democrats have been very good
at telling people if you're not regulated, then you're doing
something to hurt the environment. That terrifies me. Sure, but
these regulations, so many regulations now, they have nothing to
(12:31):
do with that. It is and oftentimes it's a group
lobbying to make it harder for the little guy so
that you know, like big sugar, it'll all go to them,
it won't go to the other guy. There's so much
behind the scenes of government, Can you kind of like
break that down a little bit?
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Sure? Sure?
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
So so often when we talk about cutting regulation, we're
talking about cutting burdens from regulation, right as you know,
We're not talking about getting rid of the regulations that
are going to protect the consumer. The problem is the
vast majority of regulations don't protect the consumer. Right when
we look at, for example, the whole push to break
up Google today, that is coming from Google's competitors, not
(13:08):
from any kind of consumers group or consumers union.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
It's because they all want to The competitors want to
divide up Google so that they can buy the pieces.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
People want to buy Chrome, they want to buy the browser,
they want to buy the search engine, they want to
buy the data from Google Maps, et cetera. So well, again,
when we talk about cutting regulation, we're talking about getting
rid of the rules that don't actually protect the consumer.
They're there to supposedly protect the consumer, but they don't
fulfill that mission. A lot of things like the energy
requirements on home appliances are a very good example of that.
(13:41):
There's a reason why you need to wash your clothes
two three times, why you need to run your dishwasher
two three times, same thing with your clothes dryer.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
We found out something interesting about the disrupture, which I
just want to share because it has changed my life
in the last week. So apparently the dishwashers they have
to have these energy saving requirements on the normal wash,
so if you use any of the other washes on
your dishwrusher. Because I was laining to one of the
guys that his kids go to our school and they
(14:11):
do appliances, and I was like, my dishwasher never dries
my dishes alt away, so annoying. I have to bring
them out and dry them. And he was like, that's
because of these energy efficient requirements, he said, but we
don't have some kit them on the heavy wash or
the lightwash. I never have to dry them. I mean,
I'm totally shocked by this, but how stupid that you
have this small regulation that makes that. I mean, not
(14:33):
that I can't dry my dishes, but it's just like
you expect a machine to work a certain way, and
then I find out if I just puts a different button,
it's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
It's crazy, but you're still stuck paying the higher cost
for that appliance, so that the appliance has to be
built in such a way to try to use half
the water it used to and less electricity than it
used to. And so the result is a much higher
upfront ball. So even if you do have those kinds
of work rounds that you're talking about again, the consumer
(15:03):
is still stuck paying that higher upfront cost.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
And when we look at the four years.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Of the Biden administration, the regulatory compliance costs average out
to about ten thousand dollars. Actually, it's over ten thousand
dollars for a typical American household. It's absolutely insane, and
so you're stuck having to do all these kinds of
workarounds that you're describing to you to try and reduce
your cost.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Brain when your car shuts off at the stoplight, you
have to what it reminds me. I'm like, that's a
metaphor for annoying regulations, you know, like why do I
have to do this every time to get my card
at an OPTOD.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
It's worse than annoying because in instances like that, what
you're doing is you're constantly allowing the engine temperature to
drop slightly that actually hurts the long run life of
your car because you now have you're now constantly putting
the engine back into condition where it's not it's not
operating at peak efficiency, believe it or not.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
And also it's increasing wear and tear.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
So again to.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Mention it to the company, like are we wearing out
cars faster? I mean, everybody says nothing lasts as long
as it used to, but it's really true, nothing lasts as.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Long because because we're trying to meet all these insane
emissions requirements. Right, that's the reason your engine can't idle
at a red light anymore.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
It's because you are.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
You need to be able to essentially cut any emissions
anywhere possible.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
It's why cars don't accelerate as well as they used to. Right.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
We can't have the same performance that we did in
years past because the manufacturers are doing anything and everything
they can to reduce those emissions. It's also why so
many vehicles are going hybrid today, which you know, you
can make the argument that's good for the consumer because
you're using less fuel and everything.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
It's more efficient.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
I get that, but it's a much higher upfront cost
than a lot of families just can't afford. So a
lot of families are having to keep older cars longer.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
And the scary thing there is you're keeping.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
A car on the road longer that's less safe than
the car as we make today. Right, they don't have
all of the new standards when it comes to safety,
but for the sake of emission standards, you're starting to.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
But also for years, like in Michigan, you get so
many rebates if you buy an electric vehicle, so for
years that people who are struggling along with their older car,
their taxpayer dollars are to pay a rich person to
go off because even with the rebates can't afford it.
I mean, you just can't afford to go out and
buy one of these cars, even with the rebates. So
the person who is struggling along with their old car
(17:28):
is paying for the rich person to drive their brand
new eb It's crazy to think that this is what
these are the Democrat policies. But why don't people see this?
Speaker 2 (17:37):
I think because conversations like this don't make it into
the mainstream media. Right the mainstream media, they have their
talking points from the left and they run with thick
and it is good. I think that podcasts and alternative
media is really gaining steam against mainstream media and that
really is a dying medium, which again is good because
(17:58):
it means there isn't the same stre angle hold on
the truth anymore or lies, I should say, right, and
now the truth can actually get out again through conversations
like this.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
How can reducing these regulations to so let's this will
be my last question. But as we see President Trump
kind of increasing the jobs and we're seeing these small
wins that are going to turn into big wins, how
does this really free up the time? Well?
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Good, good question.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
I like to say that taxes are a penalty on
economic activity that's happening.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Regulations are a penalty on economic activity that never gets
to happen. In other words, taxes.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Cause don it's going to have to record less. Oh wait, Rana,
there you go.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Taxes cause you to pay for what you're buying, what
you're selling for property that you own. What regulation does
is it prevents any of that from even happening, right.
It prevents the job from being created, It prevents you
from selling a product, It prevents you as the consumer
from getting that product or service in the first place.
And so as you start to not only reduce taxes
which increases economic activity, but reduce that burns some ineffective
(19:07):
regulation that causes an even bigger increase in economic activity.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
There. You made me think a couple of years ago,
we our taxpayer state taxpayer dollars went into the budget
and there was a county in Michigan that got a
cricket field. I don't fight cricket. I mean, I don't
know a lot of people that play cricket. This is
something that a certain community apparently wanted in this county.
But instead of having the county pay for it, instead
(19:33):
of going to the county and having the beause then
it's like more obvious, you know what it's going to
The county has to get their community to go, yes,
we want this, even though we're not going to use
it. It gets kind of sneaked into the state budget. Then
we're all paying for a million dollars for a cricket
field that could have gone into education, that could have
gone into rhoades. These are the things that I think
are also you have to be aware of and you
(19:55):
have to have and this is kind of what Republicans
are exposing right now. There's a massive amount of it's
just I know I said I wouldn't keep going, but
that's okay, No, just keep reminding me of thing.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
And DOZE has been absolutely invaluable here. So in the
last GDP report, we saw a government spending fell by
about a quarter of a percentage point, which I know
that doesn't sound like a lot, but it's progress.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
That's huge.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
After the explosion and government purchases that we saw under Biden,
government purchases have now declined, and about ninety seven or
ninety percent of that decrease is directly attributable to the cost.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Savings from DOZE in the first three months of this year.
I mean, that's phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
This is a group of what a dozen people, and
they're identifying all the kinds of waste that you're talking
about to you or whether it's the abuse, the corruption,
the fraud, the waste, whatever the case may be, they're
finding it.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
They're going through the budget with a fine toothed home and.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
They're looking at all these crazy examples of why are
we wasting tax pair dollars on A, B and C.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
There's no reaching.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Back and say a quarter point that's nothing. No, we're
talking billions. When you're in this kind of this kind
of money, when you're talking trillions of dollars even, I mean,
you have to start somewhere. That's what frustrates the name
with people when they are just like, oh, this is
not enough. It is we just get to keep going.
You gotta starty something. Well, thank you so much. I
really appreciate having you on today. It's been a great
(21:13):
conversation and it's been great to be here at the
Job Greaters Network Freedom Fighters Summit. It's been amazing. Eg Antony,
thank you my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Many thanks to EJ and Tooni for joining us. And
coming up next is the twenty seventh Secretary of Labor
for the United States, Alex Acosta, will join us to
discuss the state of small business in the US. Stay tuned.
We are here at the Job Creators Network Freedom Fighters
Summit and I have Secretary Acosta with me. You are
(21:45):
the twenty seventh Labor Secretary. This is a very interesting
time we're at in the United States. It's a wonderful time,
and it is a wonderful time and so I'm so
glad that you're here to talk to us about it
because this is your expertise. Obviously, today this we're we
are recording this ahead of time, but today here at
the summit, while we're here, the Job's report came out
(22:08):
and I was like, you know, Secretary alex Acosta, this
is the guy he will know about this. And then
you were like, you said that to me, and you
must have heard what I said. I didn't, So I'm
really excited to hear what you have to say about it,
because I think it's very interesting.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
So we're just talking about deregulation and how much President
Trump is doing in deregulation, and you know, I think
sometimes Americans have a hard time understanding what it means
to say ten billion versus twenty billion versus you know,
half a trillion, because it's just so so so much.
The numbers are so big. What does it mean? And
so I wanted to break it down because the job's
(22:42):
numbers just came out this morning, and I think the
jobs number offer an interesting view into what deregulation means.
And so last year, our economy generated one and a
half million jobs, which is good, but let's talk about
what that meant. Four one hundred thousand of those jobs
were government jobs. So out of the one and a
(23:03):
half million. Four hundred thousand were government jobs.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
It's like a third of the job.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Nine hundred thousand new government jobs, new net new government jobs. Good, great,
well third of the jobs, give or take. You know,
we're new net government jobs. Nine hundred thousand is what
I'll call government adjacent jobs. And what by government adjacent
I mean healthcare services.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
And education services.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
We didn't get a lot more new teachers, we didn't
get a lot more doctors and nurses. We got more
hospital administrators. I was talking to someone in the audience
that said, you know, that's fascinating because I worked at
a hospital and we had to hire an army of
compliance specialists to comply with the new insurance rules, and
we actually had to fire healthcare staff because of the regulations.
(23:50):
So nine hundred thousand jobs to comply with healthcare and
education oversight.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
So that makes sense because in Michigan, the after COVID,
the governor enacted this racial bias testing that had to
occur in all of our hospitals. So then you had
to hire a lot of people to administer the racial
bias testing, and then people did get fired because they
had to spend so much money on the racial bias testing.
And then these people took these tests and they said
(24:18):
they were incredibly insulting because they said, we don't we
don't judge whether or not we are going to treat
somebody based on the race. This is ridiculous. What a
waste of money?
Speaker 3 (24:27):
You treat them because they're a person.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
That's right, yes, right.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
And so they actually let go of nurses and healthcare
staff to hire compliance and regulatory folks and called bureaucracy.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Right, So nine hundred.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
Thousand of those jobs went to healthcare and education throcs.
And what that meant was only two hundred thousand netnew jobs,
where like folks doing things like making things right, you know,
not not government workers adding tiber, not you know, bureaucrats
in the hospitals, but you know, actual doctors and nurses
(25:06):
and teachers and manufacturers.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
And that's what I was going to say. When you
think about people who make I come from the foundry world,
So I was a maker of things, you know, and
there's some certain pride in making things. And that is
what we keep hearing from Donald Trump is we've got
to get back to he said just in Michigan this week,
those three beautiful words I love to hear made in America.
(25:30):
You know, that's what we want, and.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
That's what we wanted.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
So out of the one and a half million jobs
created last year, only two hundred thousand we're outside of
government or government Jason Sectors.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
That's shocking.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
Now, let's talk about this year so far since President
Trump took office. The new job numbers were out this morning,
one hundred and seventy seven thousand, better than expected. That's
good news, that's great news. But here's what I love
about it. We've already created two hundred thousand since some
President Trump took office, thousand jobs making things and doing
(26:05):
things and doing something that's not a government job.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Right.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
We've only created in gut. When I say government, I
mean federal, state and local. But federal, state and local.
This year, we've created twenty thousand jobs, not four hundred
thousand jobs, right. And so the jobs that are being
created are the private sector jobs that pay really well,
that increase our economy, that increase our our lifestyle, that
(26:32):
make us happier, right, that make us healthier, that make
us better educated.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
That's what we want in this economy.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
I heard Senator Earned saying that these are the types
of jobs that free up the economy. And I thought
that was that was something that was very profound because
we don't think about the government jobs. They stifle the economy.
That is, if you are creating more government, it is
to stop business from being free. If you are creating
manufact if you're creating jobs where people do things, if
(27:02):
you're creating actual jobs for nurses and doctors, that is
freeing up the economy.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
To take your hospital example in Michigan, you know, the
hospital's purpose is to make people healthier. You're not making
them healthier by creating more compliance specialists and letting go
of nurses. You're making them healthier by hiring more nurses
take care of all people.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So the question is that why did
the Biden administration make so many government jobs. I think
that's what people don't understand and they don't see it.
This is one of the things that we're going to
talk about the economy later and whether or not we
need to raise taxes or we're overspending, which obviously we
are overspending, but the American people don't necessarily see that
(27:45):
every day because they don't see these special interest groups
that are like, oh, we're going to spend for you know,
to make sure that people are having diversity in the
workplace in Serbia. Why are we spending that kind of money?
So how do you get how does this translate into
talking to.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
The American So I think there are a few things
on the table.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
First, it's easiest to create a government job because all
you have to do is write a check, right, And
so you know, if you're worried about how the economy
is doing, you're going into an election and you're worried
about how is the economy doing, and your President Biden,
you can say, let's create a bunch of government jobs.
And now, all of a sudden, the job numbers look better.
All of a sudden, you have government workers that are
(28:24):
going to vote for you because you just gave them
a job. The country's not healthier. It's not the right
thing to do in the long run, but it's the
easy fix. It's the sugar fix. It's sort of like,
you know, we have kids and sometimes you're trying to
do five things and you know your your child wants
to have some cake, and you're like, okay, go ahead
and have that cake. That's not the right move. That's
(28:45):
not the healthy move.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
But it's the easiest.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
We've all done that, right, you know, I'll have a
six year old and so so, yeah, it's the sugar fix,
and I think that's part of it. The other part
of it is, I think genuinely there's a difference between
Democrats and Republicans and how they look at things. I
think democrats genuinely believe that the government should tell you
(29:10):
how you know, how to do things. You see this,
for example, with the vaccine mandate. You see this with
so many other things where you know, they want to
empower government workers to come up with rules to govern
your life. And I think conservatives people say, look, it's
my life, you know, I know, and I should know
(29:31):
what's best for me, and if not, I'm going to
learn from it. And so I want to make my
own decisions. And that creates a whole different, you know,
approach to how big government should be.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
So it's interesting because I posted something about AOC and
how bad her policies are and the amount of comments
that I got back saying government should take care of us,
that she is there to make sure government takes care
of us, and how did we get here? Were there
is a vast amount of the population that believes that
government is there to make sure that you have the
(30:04):
necessities like roads, that you have the necessities like police
and fire, that you have the necessities like education, is
actually that they should care for you. That has never
been the thought process of the United States. But we're
going that direction.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
Wait, we are going that way, and we're replacing the
role of family with government. Right, that's right, and and
and that and that's so dangerous, you know. And so
a lot of these regulations that the liberals come out
with is to replace family. It's you know, it's to
replace community caring for someone with the government check. But
(30:39):
that's really not caring that that that's another form of
that sugar, you know, high instead of us going through
the effort of you know, yesterday, one of the guests
here was sitting on the floor and someone brought a
share to her right away, right. And what's interesting is
someone actually went through the effort of going and finding
(31:00):
a chair and coming back and saying, sit on a chair,
not befloor. It wasn't let's call the hotel staff and
let's engage the hotel bureaucracy, you know, to help this woman.
And so I think at a big picture the differences.
The Democrats want to have a safety staff that will
then find the right, you know, the right safety mechanism
(31:23):
for the woman to get off the floor. The conservative
view is an older lady just felt, let's get her
a chair so she's not sitting on the steps.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
So this is interesting because in high schools right now,
there is a push in at least in the state
of Michigan to put these health clinics in high school
so that it's whole of care, full of childcare. So
the child goes to the school, they at some point
are dismissed to the health clinic for their annual checkup.
They get their vaccinations there. That's all of a sudden
(31:55):
something that to me is very family personal that now
is going to be at the school. You've got a
lot of administrative work to manage the chech And in Michigan,
we don't have control of our child's healthcare record after
the age of twelve at all. They have to sign
medical proxy over to their parents and I can still
only see a certain amount of their tests and their
(32:15):
results because they get total consult of their healthcare after twelve,
which is outrageous that now this is like we're going
to take all of that out of the family, We're
going to put that all in the schools. But the
interesting thing to me is that there is no accountability
in the schools for actual education. We're forty first in
(32:35):
the nation for literacy and for education, so we're a
disaster right when it comes to actually holding the schools
accountable for what they are meant to do. There is
no push to see that these kids can do school
extracurricular activities like football and basketball and those things. And
yet there have been many studies that have shown that
(32:57):
if kids are engaged in a sport or a club
and that requires them to do well in school, that
will lift the entire school because if you see the
jocks having to actually attain a certain GPA. When did
we get to the point where we take away the
things that are the core part of what we provide
(33:18):
to students and we try to create the family around
the kid in the school. This is scary.
Speaker 4 (33:24):
Well, you know, I wasn't aware of the Michigan statute,
and I think it's frightening because what's happening there is
the school is replacing the parents, the school.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
What you're telling me is that parents.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
Literally after twelve have no control over the child's healthcare
unless the child signs it, and that the school wants
to take over that child's healthcare.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
And that's just wrong.
Speaker 4 (33:50):
It's another form of the government replacing the family. Yeah, right,
And you know, it's quite literally a step toward a
brave new world where where where the schools become the parent.
I think one of the problems, and one of the
issues is and I'll say you know, I think I
think folks that go into teaching love children, that they
(34:12):
want to do the right thing. But we've lost humility.
We've lost the sense of our job is to teach
and it stops there. We've lost the humility to say
we are not the all. Yes, we've lost the humility
to say we need to respect parents in this right
because they were the parents. They are the primary educator
(34:33):
and caregiver and moral teacher, and our job is to
support the parents by teaching math and writing in English.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
The idea, the Hillary Clinton statement of it takes a
village to raise a child went to a different level.
She took that too, we want your child and it
needs to not be the family that was the scary thing.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
That is scary.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
And you know, let's let's start with family first, right right, Yes,
you know, and if you look at all the studies
the family, a family structure is the most important thing
for a child, and the schools cannot replace that. And
having health clinics, you know, having the schools control a
child's healthcare cannot replace them.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
So I want to jump quickly to the unions because
that's something that I'm sure you dealt with heavily. That's
something that Donald Trump when he was on the campaign trail,
he was talking to the union's quite a bit. The
interesting thing is, I just want to know, Donald Trump
just announced that he's going to bring new fighter jets
to Selfridge Air Force Base that there were We're going
(35:36):
to make sure that that continues in the state of Michigan.
Joe Biden had that opportunity. He flew into that base
just to go walk the picket line with the UAW,
But the auto workers didn't actually come out and vote
for him. The UAW the leaders were not fans of
President Trump when he was running. Suddenly they're changing their tune.
(35:56):
They kind of like the terror of situation.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
Well, they're changing their tune because as their members are
changing their.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Toom, let's so they should listen to their.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
Per and they need to listen to their members or
they can be voted out.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
You know. Look, I mean the.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
Problem is that the union leadership, the afl CIO leadership
in Washington is just a large extent in arm of
the Democratic Party. And you know the President Biden went
and who walked to took a line and all that,
and it was a political stunt, That's what it was.
Let's call it. It was a political stunt.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Of course it was good. It was a good picture
for someone who couldn't go go out and give a speech.
Speaker 4 (36:31):
Yeah, and it was a good picture for someone that
wanted to say, you're a union person, you should vote
for me, because I want to pick it line. But ultimately,
you know, if you've been around President Trump, you know
he you know, he grew up at construction sites, he
grew up talking to workers. He understands the worker. You know,
I'd like to sometimes say he's a billionaire that understands
(36:54):
more about most American workers than many millionaires do.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Right.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
You know, he could isolate himself, but he doesn't. I've
seen him go and give give talks. You know, I've
seen him go to a Vegas hotel to give a
speech and on the way he'll stop and he'll talk
to the restaurant workers. You know, he'll talk to the
guys in the elevator. He likes it. This is who
he is and you can't fake that, right and when
(37:21):
he goes. You know, I was with him when he
visited a caterpillar site. I think it was a caterpillar set.
There are a bunch of caterpillar tractors there. The men
and women sense that. They scent how much he likes
talking to the workers, and he cares about the workers.
And that translates for the UAW and for Michigan in
that he wants cars made right here in America.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
You know, if he was here, he.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
Said, those big, beautiful cars made right here, you know,
with American hands. And he gets that, why did we
send them out? You know, we're making them abroad, not
because we can't make them here, but because the regulations
make it so hard and expensive to make them here.
(38:04):
We're talking inside about how we will mine or in
the United States, you know, because of environmental regulations, we
can't process it here, so We'll put it on a
boat that uses a lot of oil to ship it
to China, to process it in a factory in China
that is certainly not a green factory to the world
(38:28):
in the same world. Right to then put it on
another boat to ship it right back to the United States?
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Is process steel? Right?
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Is that really green? Are we really helping the environment?
Are we just pushing jobs out of America?
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Right? And then that's the thing, like I said, that
people can't they can't break that down in their heads.
But you said something I have not thought about this
in two years. There is truly a difference between Donald
Trump as a leader and as a business owner than
other people. And I come from like I said, we
(39:00):
had a foundry and I was on the shop floor
every day because it was you know, my job was
to communicate between the customers and the shop floor. I
had to be down there. I had to be helping
to move parts. You know, I was interacting every single day.
I met an owner of a company when I was campaigning.
You know, you meet with all these people who are
interested in he's the governor. Then he looked at me
(39:22):
and he said, I go to my factories once a
month and I walk on the shop floor and all
the people look at me and they feel so good
to think that I'm willing to step out on the
shop floor. And I was like, no, they don't that
because that attitude is so different than Donald Trump. And
I think that is what people see you, right, And
I've never really put my finger on it, but that
(39:44):
is what when they see President Trump, they know he
actually cares when you're around him, if you are with
him in person, you see it. That was the key
to him being successful was continuing to go back and
in his.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Heart, he's not a politician. In his heart, he's not
someone that went up through the elected system. In his heart,
he's a businessman that knows that the folks that worked
for him, that built his buildings actually built them. Yes,
And he gets that and it translates into how he relates,
(40:19):
and it translates into how he thinks.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
And that's why, at the end of the day, so.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
Many men and women, you know, even though the union
leadership did not endorse President Trump, so many men and
women of labor actually voted for him because they know
he will have their back.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
So give us a prediction before you go of what
happens in this presidential term, and how does that change
the country Because we're seeing him with a lot of
executive actions. We're seeing him lowering costs and taking out regulations.
But can we get the Congress on board to make
that permanent?
Speaker 4 (40:50):
So I think the Congress will come on board. I
think we're going to see. You know, we don't talk
nearly enough about the upcoming tax build and how important
it is to make those tax cuts permanent because the
last thing we need now is the tax is going
up because the tax cuts weren't made permanent, right, and
so we desperately need that.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
I think you're going to see that happen. You know.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
I think the biggest challenge right now that we have
is the economy is shifting, right. We see this in
the jobs numbers where we started. You know, so far
this year we've already created more private sector jobs than
all of last year combined. That's crazy, which is great news, right,
But you see that shift away from you know, a
(41:31):
lot of the other jobs, away from the government, jobs,
away from the government adjacent jobs, and that creates disruption,
and the tariffs create disruption, and you're starting to see
that a little bit in the GDP numbers, and there's
pushback on that, and we just need to realize we're
going through a transition and we need a little bit
of patience. And I think once it's done, you're going
(41:53):
to see the economy boom because these small business jobs
that have been created are the ones that last and
the ones that are right there in your community. They're
not the ones that get shipped overseas.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
That's interesting because there is a lot of pushback right now,
and I think there's a lot of fear surrounding some
of these news reports that like, oh, this is crazy,
the stock market's fluctuating, this is a problem, but you
see a positive out But.
Speaker 4 (42:17):
Look, I'm just looking at the data. We've created more
private sector jobs.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
You know, like the science.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
It's a science, you know, it's not the science.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
It's it's just numbers, right, I'm not it's not opinion.
The bottom line is one hundred and seventy thousand, seventy
seven thousand new jobs. And for the first time in
a long time, you know, government jobs weren't a big
chunk of that. It was a really small chunk and
that's good for all.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Of us in the log I love it well. Thank
you so much, Secretary alex Acosta. I appreciate having you on.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
I appreciate your time.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Thank you for joining me on the Tutor Dixon Podcast.
For this episode and others, go to Tutor disonpodcast dot com.
You can subscribe right there, or head over to the
iHeartRadio app, apple Pie or wherever you get your podcasts
and join us next time on the Tutor Dixon Podcast.
Have a blessed it
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