5-22-25 - 7am - Renewable Phase Out and The Autopen

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, Michael. So the phase out of the green
Energy Bowl crap. That's just to ensure that all of
the cronies of everybody in Congress and the Senate and
everything get their money from us. Anyhow, don't you know
by now they hate us and they don't want to
do anything that will benefit us. We are just their

(00:23):
coin purse or their wallet, and it is sickening.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
I don't believe that anybody hates me. Somebody hates me.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Somebody hates us, somebody who's looking at you right now, oh.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Looking at me? Then? So yeah, you know what, So.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Let's snik through some of those energy provisions, because you know,
I've got a big bugaboo about energy. So it looks
like the bill eliminates the inflation reduction. Next subsidies, let's
talk specifically about wind and solar. For wind and solar
and elations. Now, it does phase them out, but there

(01:06):
are some commentators talking about how the previous draft of
the bill would have started the phase out in twenty
twenty nine. This version eliminates them starting at the end
of twenty twenty six. So the phase out. I love
the way they're twisting this around. It's still a phase out.

(01:30):
It's not an elimination, it's a phase out. Some portions
I can't figure out yet based on I mean, this
is all just coming in. I can't figure out which
is Some are eliminated at the end of next year.
And I think if I read this rite, any proposed
project that is not permitted by that time would then

(01:56):
become ineligible for the credit. So projects that meet the
permitting deadline would have to begin generating the electricity no
later than the end of twenty twenty eight or they
would face the elimination of their subsidies. Still a phase out.
But here I'm speaking specifically about wind and solar installations.

(02:22):
That has nothing to do with you know, wind and
solar development or you know, they're trying to you got
some company out there doing R and D, or they
got they've got a better mouse trap, i ea, better
wind tur buying, or a better solar panel that I'm
talking about installations here. So I guess I would argue

(02:44):
that now, you know, boosters of this intermittent, unreliable electricity,
of course they're going to start screaming and wailing that
the elimination of the subsidies are going to you know,
put an end of their growth in the United States,
and they're right, at least for one time.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
They're not they're not lying.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
But here's what they don't seem to realize is that
if they're going to use those talking points, they're kind
of admitting that their industry probably shouldn't exist at all.
Because any business model that cannot survive without seeking government subsidies,
government rents, government money, o PM, other people's money is

(03:26):
a business model that probably deserves to fail. If you
have to have a government subsidy in order for your
business to survive, then in a free marketing I started
to say, a free market economy. In a free market economy,
then you should fail. And honestly, there's nothing wrong with failing.

(03:49):
It just means that there's not you know, your business
model just doesn't work. Let's see Inverus, they're a big
data and analytic firm. They release the report in May
called the twenty twenty five Interconnection Q Outlook. Now, in

(04:13):
that report, they detail the critical impact that those subsidies
have had on the rapid growth of wind and solar
since twenty twenty two. Here's what the report's said. In
part inverse, experts continue to underscore that generous tax credits
from the Inflation Reduction Act and the EPs EPA's update

(04:34):
to forty CFR Part sixty, which mandates additional coal retirements,
have significantly boosted demand to renewable energy projects across the
United States. The surge in investment and development has overwhelmed
interconnection cueues with a record number of projects seeking GRIG connections.

(04:56):
This has exceeded grid operator's processing capacity, causing significant delays
and project suspensions. Understanding project suspensions and success rates is
critical as these factors vary by independent assystem operators, their
technology type, and the project stage.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Compounding delays.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
These are the key challenges identified in their interconnection queue
compounding delays across several stages, with the main driver of
higher than average project development timelines, which average close to
eight years for all project types. He goes on to
describe how only a fraction of capacity in the interconnection

(05:42):
queues are expected to reach operation. So based on inverse
gradient boosting machine learning model, only approximately ten percent of
projects will successfully come online in the next three years. Okay,
so THEA doesn't begin until the end of next year,

(06:04):
so the phase out doesn't even start until the end
the next year. This report is saying that only about
ten percent of projects will successfully come online in the
next three years. So if I try, if I tried
to put those two the bill itself, and then this

(06:24):
report from invers about how long it's going to take
some of these projects to come online, then maybe the
phase out isn't quite so bad. But again it begs
the question, why not just cut them off? If only
ten percent might come online in the next three years,
that means ninety percent are unlikely to come online in

(06:48):
the next three years.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
So go ahead and kill them.

Speaker 3 (06:51):
I mean invest in you know, in the private sector,
investor do that all the time. So you've got a
startup company and you've done a couple of rounds, you've
raised some money, and now you're on maybe your third
round of of of a capital raise, and the investors
you've gone to in the past have said, no, no,
we're not gonna put it. We're not gonna put any
more in. We don't see that there's an ROI on

(07:17):
the timeline that we expected, so we're not gonna put
any more money in. So then they go to new
investors and they ask the new investors, Hey, we need
a capital infusion of you know, just picking them out
of my butt a million bucks, so you know, you're
asking new investors for a million bucks. They look at
a report like this, because this is the kind of
due diligence they would do. They would look at they

(07:38):
would dig up and find the inverse report and see that, oh,
only about ten percent of projects are going to successfully
come online in the next three years. And then they
will understand what the legislation does because these these these
analysts do a really good job and they see, oh,
but your subsidy is going to start phasing out, Well,

(08:00):
I'm not gonna put any more money in, so it's
going to die a natural death regardless. And even if
the money was coming in from the subsidies, the investor
might look at a particular project and say, oh, you're
not in that estimated ten percent that might successfully might
successfully come online in the next three years. So I'm

(08:22):
not going to put my capital into your project. I'm
gonna put my capital into something that has a little
better odds than that. So if this analysis is right,
just ten percent of the projects already in the queue
will meet an end of twenty twenty eight deadline in

(08:42):
this bill, that reality essentially eliminates. I think any hope
that projects plan to be permitted in years out beyond
twenty twenty eight could ever hope to benefit from the
Inflation Reduction Acts largess. So you know what's going to

(09:03):
happen is that the intermittent power lobby, wind and solar lobby,
they're going to kick their efforts into high gear now
over the in the Senate, to try to salvage these
faulty business models by preserving the subsidies. And when you
think about all the squishy rhinos over in the Senate,

(09:24):
I would say it remains to be seen if the
language in the House version, which is bad enough, if
it'll even survive. But maybe there is some good in that.
But let's get back to the bill itself. So hang

(09:47):
on one second.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
We'll see.

Speaker 3 (09:50):
If I'm just scrolling through. Oh, here's here's some information.
It does not include the proof as I said earlier.
It does not include the provision to eliminate taxes on
Social Security benefits. Now, as I pointed out earlier, it
does contain a lot of other tax policy changes. It
obviously extends the twenty seventeen Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,

(10:14):
so that that and then it goes on to eliminate
taxes on tips and overtime pay, it increases the salt
deduction cap.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
Here's what I.

Speaker 3 (10:27):
Here's what I can figure out about social security. Now,
where are we currently on socialism? Let's just think about
where we are right now. Social Security benefits are our
subject federal income tax for individuals with combined incomes that
exceed I think it's twenty five grand for single and

(10:48):
it might be thirty two four joint filers. And if
you reach that threshold, then up to fifty and up
to eighty five percent of your social Security benefits become taxable.
And I think that wherever you fall in that depends
on the amount of money you make elsewhere. But eliminating

(11:12):
taxes on social security, if I recall, right, just even
this week, in his discussions and coming out of that
meeting yesterday, it was always talking about eliminating taxes on tips,
over time and social security. So throughout the twenty four election,

(11:33):
that was aimed at supporting seniors. But that's clearly been
excluded from this final House version of the bill. And
I can only say or guess that it's because of
physcal constraints or they wanted to prioritize other tax cuts.

(11:54):
You know, there's four point one trillion dollars in tax
reductions included in this. I think that's the right number.
So if you remove taxes and social security benefits, that
would reduce federal revenue pretty significantly, I would imagine, and
that would add hundreds of billions to the deficit over
a decade, because everything's calculated over a ten year period.

(12:17):
So the bill already increases the deficit by three point
three to three point eight trillion dollars. So if you
thought that we were going to somehow reduce spending, now
I have Again, I'll pull up the see what.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
I'll look at ABC News first, just to.

Speaker 3 (12:41):
Piss you off, but I'll go over and see what
they're saying in terms of the sound bites on.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
The morning shows.

Speaker 3 (12:49):
But I thought the whole idea was and I bet
they're making the case that they're actually reducing spending. If
you're actually reducing spending, then how do you increase the
deficit between three point three and three point eight trillion dollars?

Speaker 2 (13:06):
How does that happen?

Speaker 3 (13:09):
Because that that happens because over a ten year period,
the CBO's general outlook that they forward outlook that they do.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
You're spending money, and you're spending money that.

Speaker 3 (13:23):
We don't have, so that if you at remember this,
if you increase the debt, let's just say three, let's
say four trillion dollars, because you know it's going to
end up being more. So let's say you're going to
increase the deficit by four trillion dollars. If you increase

(13:43):
the deficit by four trillion dollars, that means that a
combination of tax revenues didn't get you beyond the deficit,
so you borrowed to get to cover that deficit. So
whatever that dollar amount is, if the deficit, if the

(14:05):
deficit increase is four trillion dollars, that means you've added
to trillion dollars. Assuming you're spending, you're getting fifty percent
of the total amount that you're going to spend through
tax revenues, so you're going have to borrow the rest
of it. So to read, if you borrow fifty percent

(14:25):
of whatever that budget dollar dollar amount is, it's probably
the four trillion or even higher budget that you're spending.
You're going to add that to the budget debt, I
mean to the national debt.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
So this.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
There's no effect doing a word search. I've got the
legislation here. There's not even a mention of social security,
let alone social Security tax elimination in eleven hundred pages.
So if that was a priority for some lawmakers, or
if it was a priority for some constituents, including in
this audience, maybe it'll reservice in the Senate or future legislation,

(15:08):
but it's not a part of this.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
House past version.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
Let me look at some of the specifics on the
Inflation Reduction Act. It does target tax credits. The credits
began phasing out after twenty twenty eight. As I said earlier,
they're not fully repealed until twenty thirty one, which by
my calculation is six years from now. So go back

(15:39):
to that Inverus report. That means that there will be
some companies. It may be less than ten percent of
the companies out there, but there will be some companies
that will meet that deadline and they will have consumed
all of the subsidies they can by the full repeal
date of twenty thirty one, so that money will still
go out the window. Now, I again, I don't have

(16:05):
the exact numbers in front of me. But if you
wanted to actually take taxes off Social Security, what if
you had eliminated and I mean on the effective date
that the legislation is passed by the Senate and signed
by the President. If you had eliminated all of the

(16:26):
subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act, that would have been
an offset for the revenue loss that you have on
the elimination of taxes on Social Security. So why didn't
they do it? I'm just I'm asking the question because
I don't know what the answer is. So let's see
other green subsidies. You've got grants or loans for renewables.

(16:50):
They're curtailed, but again the curtailment starts. Oh, for those,
the curtailment starts in twenty twenty five, but they still
have six year phase out period. They prioritize fossil fuel infrastructure,
including expedited permitting for natural gas pipelines. So that is

(17:12):
obviously a shift away from renewables or at least the incentives.
I guess I had to put it this way. It
doesn't leave Biden's clean energy provisions fully in place, but
it doesn't eliminate them.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
Either the phased approach is.

Speaker 3 (17:29):
Going to allow them to continue to spend on projects
and continue for those companies still get benefits.

Speaker 4 (17:35):
Mike, the deficit is a measure of the one year
difference between tax revenues and spending. It doesn't increase the
deficit by four trillion. It increases the national debt by
four trillion over ten years.

Speaker 3 (17:51):
So NBC News yesterday referred to here, let me just
pull it up and tell you what it says. Republicans
to zero in on autopen use as part of investigation
into Biden's health. The probe comes amid renewed scrutiny around
Biden's mental and physical fitness in office. As House Republicans

(18:15):
prepare This is the story verbatim. As House Republicans prepare
to investigate former President Joe Biden's health and mental fitness
while in office, they are increasingly zeroing in on his
use of a so called autopin to sign certain pieces
of legislation and executive orders. Why do they put the

(18:39):
modifier the adjective so called in front of autopen some
I forget it, maybe in Sean Davis or somebody. Davis
yesterday posted that on X and so I went to
the story because I couldn't figure out what the point was,
so I pulled up story just like I have. Right now,

(19:02):
they are increasingly zeroing in on his use of a
so called auto pin. Now, are they implying that he
didn't use an auto pin and that somebody forged his name,
or are they implying that we don't know what an

(19:23):
auto pin is? And so this so called autopin may
have been used to sign certain pieces of legislation and
executive orders.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
And I just found.

Speaker 3 (19:34):
It both hilarious and stupid at the same time, because
the White House has had an autopin the whole purpose
of the autopin is to replicate the signatures of the
President of the United States, And best I can tell,
it's been in use since Truman started using it in
the late forties or probably early fifties, when he supposedly

(19:59):
used it for checks and correspondence. The concept of an
automated signature and a device that does that dates all
the way back to Thomas Jefferson. We're talking like eighteen
oh one to eighteen oh he is would eighteen oh
nine be correct? Because Jefferson used what was called a

(20:22):
polygraph that was a mechanical device, and what it did
it duplicated handwriting as it was written, though not a
fully automated pen like the modern versions. The modern autopin
is capable of independently reproducing signatures. It was development in
the nineteen thirties. It became commercially successful in nineteen forty two,

(20:46):
and then the government started using it almost everywhere. They
had an autopen signature for me. Now, why would I
have an autopen signature primarily for correspondents, but oftentimes for
rules and regulations or for transmittals to Congress or whatever.

(21:09):
If it had gone through all of the clearance process,
you know, it would start with, you know, a meeting somewhere.
Let's just say, you know, you know, correspondence actually took meetings.
If there was and I'm talking about correspondents, say from
a member of Congress or a mayor or a governor,

(21:31):
official correspondents that would actually take a meeting, and there
was a whole you know, a legislative affairs office, a
whole communications office, and oftentimes they would work together. Oh,
we got a letter from Senator so and so, Senator
dipwad so we got to respond to this Okay, well
what do you think. You know, the undersecretary you would

(21:52):
want to say, well, let's bring it up in staff meeting,
and they bring them to staff meeting, I'd say, well,
you know, my take on it is X y Z,
and then they would run back. They would go back
to a meeting and they would sit down and say, okay,
now let's draft this.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
Now.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
Depending on the type of letter, the type of correspondence,
it might actually have to go to the Office of
Management Budget in the White House for their approval before
they get autopennant and send it on up to the Hill.
That's how convoluted and how difficult it is to get
anything done in DC. But go back to NBC for

(22:35):
a moment. So the White Houses use some form of
signature replication technique, modern you would say technology for more
than two hundred years, and the modern autopins that don't require,
for example, what Jefferson had. I'm sure you've seen it
in museums or you can find videos of it online.

(22:57):
Is as you would sign the device would replicate what
your movement of your hand was, so it created another
copy of your signature on another sheet of paper that
was the original kind of version that was used so
you could you know, you could do two signatures at once. Oh,

(23:18):
that was considered as really modern. Well, the modern autopin
is they brought into me larger than eight and a
half by eleven sheets of paper. I don't know why,
I don't know what size, but they were an odd
size and there were blocks, there were printed blocks on

(23:39):
those sheets of paper, and I would have to do
I think I did probably about six or maybe eight
different versions of my signature, and then they would plug
that into the machine and the machine would come up
with a one signature and that would become the autopin signature.
And it was always it became kind of funny to

(24:00):
me because sometimes people would get and don't get me wrong,
if you get a autographed photo from the President of
the United States, you should be proud of that because
that means that somebody in the correspondence office in the
old Executive Office building saw your letter, read your letter,

(24:23):
responded to it, and if you requested a photo, they
sent a photo. But the auto pen signed that photograph.
Donald Trump didn't sign the photograph. The autopen did. And
so people sometimes would show me their pictures and the
first thing I would do was I mean, I don't
care about the picture of the president. Is I'd look

(24:44):
at the signature because you can distinctly tell the difference
between an auto pen signature and a human signature. Because
every human signature, while generally speaking, is generally alike. There
are always little bits of things like there might be
something on the paper or you know, depending on you know,

(25:05):
how heavy you are writing that day, there's always a
way to tell that it's an original versus auto pen.
But back to NBC News, So why make a big
deal out of this?

Speaker 2 (25:16):
Now?

Speaker 3 (25:17):
I understand the big deal that they ought to be
focused on is did he ever sign anything? Did Joe
Biden himself sit at the resolute desk and somebody brought him,
say a transmittal letter to Congress, let alone a pardon
and say, mister presidy, you know we've watched Trump sign

(25:39):
these executive orders, and you've seen the Cabinet secretary hand
him the folder and tell him what the document is.
And then you'll see Trump take out the big, you know,
felt tip pen and do that you know, very distinct
signature that he has, and then he hands off and
maybe gives the pen to someone that's an original signature.

(26:00):
There are a lot of things that he has an autopen.
So the question becomes in as far as Biden is concerned,
did he use an autopen or did someone use the
autopen for everything, including the pardons? Because if you do
it just to I'm not saying go out and do

(26:20):
a serious digging, like, don't spend a bunch of time
on this, but there are a lot of sources. Let's
say that if you look at the signature where he
announced he was not running again, remember that was on
Biden family stationary, that was not in White House stationary.
That signature looks entirely different from all the other signatures

(26:42):
on all the other official documents. So it does raise
a question about his use of the autopen and did
he even know that it was being used. Now, we
had protocols that said here's what the autopen can be
used for, and then I had kind of some verbal
exceptions that look, if there's a really kind of what

(27:03):
I would call a Washington Post topic, meaning that if
if the Washington Post knew about this story or this
letter or this correspondence, they would write a story about it,
then I wanted to see the letter and I wanted
to side off on it before it went out. Otherwise,
if it was a letter back to a you know,
to a disaster victim or whatever about you know, the

(27:25):
status of a claim, then yeah, autopen that because I'm
not going to get down in the weeds and that
sort of stuff. I go back to the NBC story
when they use the phrase the so called autopin, why
would an editor put that in there? Or conversely, why

(27:47):
would an editor allow that to remain in there? Because
there's nothing. There's nothing. There's no such thing as a
so called autopin there either is an autopen well, there's
not an auto pen. And there are legitimate questions about
how much did Biden use it or how much did

(28:09):
his staff use.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
It, Hey Michael.

Speaker 5 (28:14):
Regarding Biden having to do a signature for a pardon,
per an interview with buck Sexton yesterday with Alan Dershowitz,
Professor Dershowitz said that a oral pardon would suffice so
that one might be pretty tough to prove.

Speaker 3 (28:37):
And Dershowitz. Dershowitz said that an oral pardon is sufficient.
I without seeing, uh, without actually seeing what he said,

(28:58):
I'm not sure that I would buy that because there
would be no official record to transmit to the appropriate
individual or to the appropriate court of law, the court
of competent jurisdiction wherever the conviction occurred, to expunge the

(29:19):
record and to overturn the conviction. So I mean, I'm
not saying he's wrong. I'm just saying I've never heard
of an oral pardon or any case law that would
make that legitimate.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
So one of the things I want to do.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
Here's what's really going on bizarrely today behind the scenes,
because this bill was just passed last night and I
had some notes on it, but I'm really doing show
prep today on the fly as we go through this.
And I've been looking at the Medicaid provisions, and I
want to go through.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
The Medicaid provisions because the.

Speaker 3 (30:04):
Democrats are out there screaming, Holy hell that what we're
doing is that they're going to be millions and millions
of people that are going to lose their healthcare.

Speaker 4 (30:14):
Colt, how do you see the speaker now, who seems
so weak.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
For so for such a long time. Where do you
how do you see his grip on his chamber.

Speaker 6 (30:23):
I don't think it's him. I think it's Trump.

Speaker 7 (30:26):
I don't think there's any way this would have passed
but for Donald Trump essentially saying anybody who didn't vote
for it is betraying him.

Speaker 6 (30:38):
And you know, talk about this Trump still has a vice.

Speaker 3 (30:41):
Like which which hang on a second senator the castle.
That's what presidents always do. Presidents ka joel, push, persuade, threaten,
They make all sorts of political promises, They make political threats.
Uh are you trying to convince people that somehow you
don't do that, that the Democrat Party doesn't do that? Man?

(31:05):
You know, I never really thought about uh. I mean,
I understand the term gaslighting, and I know when I'm
getting gas lib but I never really thought about until
today when somebody on the text line talked about this
bill is just you know, another gas lighting in the
American public. We're getting gas lightings everywhere. It's simply unbelievable,

(31:26):
including including this bull crap.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
How do you see his grip on his chamber.

Speaker 6 (31:32):
I don't think it's him, I think it's Trump.

Speaker 7 (31:34):
I don't think there's any way this would have passed
but for Donald Trump essentially saying anybody who didn't vote
for it is betraying him.

Speaker 6 (31:47):
And you know, talk.

Speaker 7 (31:48):
About TACKI and classless and stupid. How about the last
minute change where they want savings accounts for children to
be called Trump accounts. This guy has to put his
name on everything. It's so ridiculous. So you know, we'll
see what happens in the Senate, and you know they
may squeeze this out because Trump still has a vice

(32:09):
like grip on these guys.

Speaker 6 (32:11):
Even though the bond market.

Speaker 7 (32:12):
And you know, people need to understand what the bond
market means, Willie. A lot of folks don't know what
the bond market means.

Speaker 6 (32:19):
The bond market is pretty simple.

Speaker 7 (32:21):
It means people don't want to buy our build a
loan is money anymore? When you buy a US treasury
you're loaning the United States government money. When we have
to pay higher interest to get people to do that,
that means they no longer.

Speaker 6 (32:33):
See it as a safe bet.

Speaker 7 (32:35):
And that's the problem with this deficit inducing hurting or
people bill is that it doesn't help the deficit.

Speaker 6 (32:44):
And causes a lot of pain to folks. There will
be millions and millions.

Speaker 7 (32:48):
Of people that will lose their healthcare coverage in this bill,
and that's not what Americans want.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
Son is that Medicaid is being cut and that millions
of Americans are going to lose Medicaid coverage. So I've
done some digging on that to see what this bill
actually does. And while there are some people who are
going to lose their Medicaid coverage for I would say

(33:18):
the majority of those people, I would say you probably
should have a long time ago. So when we get back,
let's walk through, because there's about five or six provisions
in this bill that I've isolated so far that deals
specifically with Medicaid. Now I pretty much blasted the bill,
but coming up next there's actually, well, including the border stuff,

(33:43):
there's actually some good stuff in this bill too, which
once again proves my point that it's all about compromise
and not everybody's going to be happy even though they're
all or gas.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
Me go over it today,