Episode Transcript
We bring in Seth Grossman who, as always,
probably has plenty to say about plenty of
these topics. Seth, good morning.
I do. Starting with if you wanna talk
about it in person, come to Sal's Coal
Fired Pizza any Saturday morning, 09:30 to 10:30.
Just order and pay for your own breakfast,
tip the server,
(00:20):
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(00:41):
We're, you know, tell us at our, weekly
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email updates at info@libertyandprosperity.com.
Before I talk about affordability this week, I
I wanna talk about just two things we
talked about last week.
You had this caller,
from California
(01:02):
who said, everybody knows that the CIA killed
John Kennedy.
And that just shows the ignorance
that is out there because
the overwhelming
and undisputed,
evidence
is that Lee Harvey Oswald killed John f
Kennedy,
that he was a loner,
that he wanted to be important,
(01:24):
that, this Lee Harvey Oswald
met the same profile
as the guy who shot,
Trump, at the guy who,
tried to kill Ronald Reagan, the guy who
killed
Charlie Kirk.
We have this
epidemic of of young lost men
who who think that they can make themselves
(01:44):
important by killing somebody.
And when you go into, you know, conspiracies,
well, this could happen or that could happen.
There's something that we call Occam's razor. I
don't know if you heard of that term.
OCCAM
apostrophe s, Occam's razor.
What it means is that the simplest explanation
is almost always the correct
(02:07):
explanation. So when you go into the Kennedy
assassination,
if the overwhelming evidence is that Kennedy was
shot from behind
and, in in the building where Lee Harvey
Oswald was and where he had his rifle
was behind,
Kennedy.
And if you're going to make a conspiracy
theory that say no, no, he was really
(02:27):
shot from the front.
Well, how how about the autopsy? Well, they
changed the body. They did this. They did
that. Think of how many doctors. Think of
how many
technicians at the hospital.
You have dozens and dozens of people have
to be part of that conspiracy.
And the more people, the more moving parts
you have,
(02:48):
the more likely someone's going to get drunk,
someone's going to get talk, someone's going to
you know talk, someone's going to get you
know get divorced, break up with the girlfriends.
All this stuff comes out the more people
are involved.
So the simplest explanation
is almost always
the correct explanation. So I just want to
bring that up.
The, the other thing we talked about last
(03:10):
week, he asked me about what I thought
of, Vince Palostino wanting the
3%
tax on free parking in Atlantic City,
to go to special CRDA
projects.
And and I pointed out that,
well, yeah. If you think it's a good
idea, then you think the baseball stadium, the
empty convention centers, the empty train stations, You
(03:31):
think they're all good ideas.
But I just found out there's one more
thing that CRDA did.
I I think about a year or two
ago, they bought the Lyla's Den,
a strip club in Atlantic City on Pacific
Avenue for a million dollars. Yes. And then
they decided they didn't really need it. So
they put up for auction at 300,000,
and it it didn't get that price. And
(03:53):
so they I think they just sold it
for a $100,000
last week.
So so this is what CRDA does.
You know, they spend money
and they buy stuff,
to bail out people with political connections, get
bailed out of bad,
real estate,
deals
by selling to top dollar at agencies like,
(04:15):
CRDA. So that's all that the open space
program was about. It is pure
corruption.
So the only good thing we should do
with that 3% tax on on free parking,
you You know, first of all, we shouldn't
even have a a tax on free parking.
You know, we think of think of how
much the whole town would benefit if you
get parked at any casino in in Atlantic
(04:36):
City for free. Yes. Like we did for
a couple years before Bill Gormley
came up with this genius idea.
But if you're gonna have to have a
tax on, the $3 tax on on parking,
at least,
you know, use to pay off the debt
that the state government, you know, the $400,000,000
debt that Christie and the state government,
(04:56):
forced Atlantic City to pay for,
so that Christie could run for president.
And I think there's still about a $180,000,000
left on that debt. You know, don't stick
the people of Atlantic City with that.
Alright. Oh, boy.
Anyway,
but
but but let let's let's let's start on
affordability.
And you're right. The Republicans are getting clobbered
(05:18):
on affordability
for a very simple reason.
When people run into high prices
and they complain something ought to be done,
what the Republican
should be doing is saying,
number one, this is why the price of
this is high.
And number two,
(05:38):
this is what we have to do to
make it go down.
And if we do these things, then the
price will come down.
And I'll give you a good example. Not
everything's going up.
You know I've been going to Florida quite
a bit to visit the grandkids.
So I fly on Spirit Airlines for $90
from, here to Fort Lauderdale.
(06:00):
And the airfare,
to go 1,100 miles
is cheaper
than what it cost me
to take an Uber to the airport and
pay for my parking while I'm away for
a week.
So so so so why is it cheaper
to go 1,100 miles
than it is to go,
20 miles and park my car? Actually, not
(06:22):
even. It's like eight miles and park my
car. Well, the the short answer is freedom
and liberty.
When it comes to airfare,
I could choose when I fly,
where I fly, what company I use, which
airport I go to.
So I have choices and because I have
choices, the price comes down.
In fact, I think we're having another airline
(06:44):
besides Virta, Allegiant Yes. Will be flying to
Fort Lauderdale and to Punta Gorda, I believe
Yes. On West Coast.
So so freedom and choices and
liberty makes things affordable.
What makes things not affordable? Well, when you
don't have a choice,
everything that government does
that politicians decide
(07:05):
is expensive. So, let's talk about housing. You
know, housing is very So, let's talk about
housing.
You know, housing is very expensive. Why?
Because real estate taxes are high.
What can we do to make real estate
taxes lower? Well, then you see, well, this
is the cost of our public schools.
We have to have, we have, you know,
public employee unions. We have teacher unions.
(07:26):
We have,
all these laws.
You know, Americans are rather in I I
think it's called individuals with disabilities and education
act.
You have to have diversity. You have all
these rules where the government forces you,
to spend
anywhere from 30 to $80,000
for each student for each year.
(07:47):
Someone has to pay for that. But do
you hear Republicans or anybody else saying
your property taxes are too high
because you're spending money on this. So if
you want property taxes lower, this is what
you have to do to make it lower.
Nobody even talks
about it. Nobody talks about why when you
wanna build a house for $300,000,
(08:08):
why it cost you,
more money for the permits
than it does,
for the material and and to build it
and to the labor to build the thing.
When it comes to,
health care,
you know, we used to have health care
in America.
It used to be, you go to a
doctor.
I know,
from my experience, my dad was a dentist.
(08:31):
He would charge $2 for filling.
A doctor would make a house call, would
charge $2.
Suddenly what used to be the $2
went up to,
$80, a $100, $300.
What caused that to go up? Well,
people say I don't wanna pay $2. I
want it for free.
What happened when it was for free? Well,
(08:52):
the government pays for it or an insurance
company pays for it. And by time you
pay for,
and and I've I've said over and over
again, just like when you go to the
body shop. You know, why does it cost
you a $150
or $200
to have the dent banged out when you
pay for yourself?
But if if you have the insurance to
it, it it costs 3 or $4,000
(09:14):
because nobody cares about other people's money. And
number two, everybody pads and and puts extra
stuff in there.
So that's why I can't buy a
a health insurance policy for me. I can
say,
I'd like to buy a policy so if
I get sick,
you know, and if I go to hospital,
(09:34):
I'll be treated.
If I have a sore throat, I'll pay
the money out of my pocket. If I
have a fever or if I have something
minor as a small sprain, I'll pay out
of my pocket. But if it's more than
a thousand dollars, I want major medical
and that's when I that's what I need
the insurance for.
In other words, when you buy car insurance
(09:54):
every you know,
this is is another point. In other words,
health insurance is not really insurance
because insurance is something you buy
when you never expect to collect. Right?
I pay for fire insurance
on my house.
I never expect to have a fire.
You know, only a small percentage of people
have a fire.
(10:16):
I get auto insurance because I I wanna
be covered if I have an accident.
You hardly ever have an accident.
So you're buying insurance for something you hope
you never use.
So health insurance really isn't insurance because you're
just paying for something you know you're gonna
use.
So isn't it a very expensive way, to
(10:36):
do it? So if I if I so
you should only have insurance for major medical
like we did until the nineteen sixties. And
and why did it change in the nineteen
sixties?
Because politicians convinced everybody
that,
you know, that that you shouldn't have to
pay anything. It's gonna be for free. And
now, you know, twenty years later, we're we're
(10:58):
spending,
you know, basically,
$151,600
dollars a month for insurance
with a $6,000 deductible that doesn't, you know,
plus anything. Yeah. So it's absolutely nuts. You
know? So the schools are expensive. The roads,
you know, why are the roads so expensive?
Well,
you go to Atlantic City, people say, well,
(11:19):
it's it's horrible.
You go down Atlantic Avenue. You're like you're
in a in Mogadishu or Mogadishu or something
like that.
Why is that? It's because fixing roads is
so expensive
that nobody could afford it. If they if
if and and a lot of people blame
Marty Small. But if Marty Small would say,
okay. I wanna fix Atlantic Avenue.
(11:40):
This is how much it's gonna cost. It's
gonna double your taxes.
Well, people,
are saying, well, I I don't wanna double
my taxes.
So then I I wish we would have
officials or Republicans to say, well, if you
don't wanna double your taxes to fix the
roads,
this is what is making it so expensive
to fix the roads.
(12:00):
We have to follow these union rules. We
have to if if a laborer does two
hours of work, we have to pay them
for a full day anyway.
Now we can't have a labor do a
job that that that that that has to
be done by somebody else.
We have to have diversity. We have to
have environmental regulations.
You have all that stuff,
and that makes everything cost, you know, five
(12:22):
or six times more
than it should cost or used to cost.
So what what do we do when we
can't afford to spend,
what we need to do to to to
fix something?
So then we have to say, alright. Let's
just borrow the money.
We'll borrow the money over twenty years. So
now we have to pay for a whole
bunch of lawyers and
(12:42):
and financial experts and Wall Street bankers.
So what used to be a job we
couldn't afford, we can't afford it even more
because we have to borrow the money on
Wall Street and something called a bond issue.
Or,
someone says, well, let's have the federal government
pay for it. Okay. And that's who who
did pay for paving Atlantic Avenue after all.
(13:04):
So now the federal government pays for it.
And then the federal government says, okay. We'll
give you the money,
but only if you turn,
two lanes in each direction to one lane
in each direction for something called a road
diet.
I just bumped into that road road diet,
last week. You know, where suddenly you're driving
Atlantic Avenue, it turns to a one lane
(13:25):
in each direction,
at,
at, I guess, North Carolina Avenue.
It it's it's ridiculous,
but it's very expensive. And then you have
to hire a whole bunch of city employees
to apply for the federal money. You have
to pay for a whole bunch of federal
employees to receive the applications.
You have lawyers. You have experts. You have
(13:45):
planners.
So everything makes it more expensive
when the, you know, when the government does
it than if you don't do all that
stuff. So how do you fix it? How
can you make
housing?
How do you make
roads? How do you make tolls? How do
you make health care? How do you make
it as affordable
as flying from Atlantic City to Fort Lauderdale?
(14:06):
And the answer is you have to bring
back freedom. You have to,
have choices. You have to let people say,
if this doesn't make sense,
I shouldn't have to pay for it. But
when government does it, no nothing makes sense,
but you have no choice.
But yet, Republicans are not doing that. What
what you hear is if something is too
(14:28):
expensive,
like, say, electricity is too expensive.
Murphy blew up the six power plants.
So, so now we have to get expensive
electricity
from out of state. Nobody is saying, well,
let's rebuild the power plants.
In fact, I just met
somebody who used to work at the Beasley
Point plant.
(14:49):
He told me that if they had let
that project go through
and let them use that cheap
natural gas from Pennsylvania,
to power that power plant, he said we
would have South Jersey would have the cheapest
electricity in the country.
He said they could have made the electricity
for only 4¢ a kilowatt hour,
as opposed to I think the wholesale price
(15:11):
is 28¢ a kilowatt hour with all the
green energy we have to pay.
So because we didn't do common sense stuff,
that's why things are are are not affordable.
But all the government is saying, oh, you
can't afford your,
your electric bill. We'll have the board of
public utilities. We'll give you a break so
you don't have to pay as much. And
(15:32):
where does the money come from? By raising
the rates on everybody who does not get
the break. So we're in this,
you know,
in in this, you know, we're going I
forgot the the term of it, but we're
we're just Catch 22. Going down
yeah. Catch 22. We're going down the drain,
and all we need is common sense. And
and what we need really are Republicans who
(15:52):
are who are gonna say that. But as
long as the Democrats say, oh, we want
affordability. We're gonna give more money to these
people so they could pay their bills. And
then and Republicans say, yeah. We'll do that
too.
We need Republicans who say this is what
caused the problem.
This is what you have to do to
fix the problem.
And if you wanna fix the problem,
(16:14):
yes. Some people are gonna get hurt. The
the consultants,
you know, the people who are getting the
special deals and benefits, they will get hurt.
But the majority of the people do better,
and we have to do it. But, when
you have politicians want us to make everybody
happy all the time, we don't make those
difficult choices.
And the Democrats are masters,
(16:35):
of the propaganda. And unless Republicans wake up,
they are gonna clobber the Republicans,
just like, they did in 2018
when I was running for congress. So I
I know exactly how this works. Anyway, we'll
talk all about this at our Liberty and
Prosperity meetings every Saturday morning, 09:30 to 10:30,
and it's all at libertyandprosperity.com.
(16:57):
Seth, thank you. As always, a pleasure. Seth
Grossman, libertyandprosperity.com.
The meeting starts right now at Sal's Coal
Fired Pizza in Somers Point.
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