March 15, 2025 • 18 mins
President of Liberty and Prosperity, Brian Fitzherbert joins Anne Baker for 'Fitzherbert Friday' on WOND radio.
Brian dissects what's going on down in Washington with the budget, CR, DOGE, and Trump resetting America's economy.
3.14.25 Brian Fitzherbert WOND Radio
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Do I have my my friend on Fifth
Herbert Friday?
Hey, Anne. Good morning. Good morning, Brian. How
the heck are you?
I'm doing well. Keeping busy. Keep well, yeah.
I expect that.
And that's not just with work. That's
with chasing Luke.
But, that being said, how are you?
(00:24):
What's new? And what's the big issue
that we need to be schooled on today?
Yeah.
I don't know. Take your pick, whether it's,
the continuing resolution
that the Democrats,
actually voted to support,
which allows the breathing room for Trump to
finally enact his agenda. So,
(00:46):
yeah, the the the typical theatrics when it
comes to government shutdowns looming as well as,
Trump's actions regarding immigration,
I think are the two big things that
have happened in the last,
probably, twenty twenty four to forty eight hours.
Yeah. Which is most important to the people?
Well, when you think about the continuing resolution,
(01:07):
look, this is something that is so
unbelievably frustrating because it's what happens when Congress
doesn't pass a budget.
And Yeah.
Both sides of the aisle consistently,
have the
the threat of
government shutdown, etcetera.
And yet Republicans always get blamed because the
(01:29):
media is obviously another arm of the Democratic
Party,
regardless of what happens. And the ironic part
was and, again, the political aspect
of,
passing
or trying to shut down the government. Everyone
it turned every democrat into a hypocrite,
that we're trying to oppose this.
And,
again, it's theatrical. The government doesn't actually shut
(01:52):
down. You've heard me say this before. It's
it's beyond theatrical in the sense that,
essential services continue, the military continue, all that
stuff. And usually what happens when a government
shutdown happens,
like we saw famously with the Obama administration,
they go and put,
block signs
at national parks where there's literally nobody working
(02:12):
anyway and says, oh, the government shut down.
You can't go walk here. Look at a
monument,
etcetera. I mean, it's it's it takes more
work to actually put the signs out than
actually anything else. And then government employees who
don't get paid
wind up, quote, unquote,
not working,
meaning productivity, and then they wind up getting
back pay anyway. So they get paid for
(02:33):
doing nothing.
So all of this is just theatrical. And,
again, I get it from,
the standpoint of why are we still doing
a continuing resolution. I mean, the last time,
we had an actual budget. I think that
was Boehner and Obama in twenty eleven twenty
eleven with the budget sequestration.
(02:54):
And
what's supposed to happen when you pass the
budget is you're supposed to pass
each of the appropriation
budgets, the multiple budgets
out of the subcommittees
to determine the basically, the funding for government.
And that doesn't happen because we just do
continuing resolutions,
meaning you just use the existing budget,
(03:16):
and you add on it and what you
have to do. And this is why this
was a Trump related activity
for the Republicans to pass because
to in order to get the tax cuts
that they're talking about to do budget reconciliation,
they have to raise the debt limit. What's
the debt limit? We all know. This is
basically think of it from a credit card
standpoint. It's your credit card limit.
Let's say you have a credit card. It's
(03:36):
$20,000
of credit limit.
And if you spend more than $20,000,
you've reached your limit. You you can't use
the credit card anymore. The same thing with
the debt limit to be able to do
this. And, of course, now that,
our interest payments
are the second highest,
annual cost
on the debt, obviously, you have to raise
the debt limit in order to be able
(03:56):
to play the financial
black magic that, unfortunately, our government's been doing
for decades and decades.
And and it's a shame because
we're we're we're 2025.
We're talking about fifteen years of continuing resolutions
where both sides of the aisle, both chambers
of Congress, the executive branch, whoever's been in
charge is not being able to actually pass
(04:18):
a budget.
And, again,
the left tries to turn this into the
Republicans are shutting it down,
regardless, and the media just amplifies that.
And
you take it a step further.
The Democrats and Schumer had to make a
choice last night in the senate that, okay,
there's a house passed bill because they were
(04:38):
hoping that Republicans
with such thin margins
would implode it themselves, and they could blame
them politically. It's always a blame game. Right?
Everything is political gamesmanship.
And because the Republicans are able to pass
it even with Massey voting against it, they
had enough. They could afford to lose one,
which was Massey out of Kentucky,
and they're able to pass it. So now
it's in the senate. So Schumer
(05:01):
again, he's to to vote for cloture to
end debate,
Republicans at 53. But you can't use a
simple majority or budget reconciliation
for this. You need 60 votes, which means
you need seven Democrats.
Oh, it is so confusing
to the average person
whose taxes
(05:22):
support this kind of
federal,
administration
and the boondoggle
that is
the budget.
It's
it's really
I I think it's difficult for most of
us to understand,
and it's more difficult for me to understand
why people are screaming about all of the
(05:44):
bureaucrats
being
let go,
having their their jobs taken from them,
when in fact our tax dollars have been
wasted on people whose jobs didn't have anything
to do
with
what,
happens to you and me, to the common
(06:04):
citizen.
So I I don't know
what side I actually stand on. I mean,
I know that it it's incredibly
it's incredibly
difficult
when you consider
the amount of of debt we've got as
you just mentioned.
But will we ever be able to get
(06:25):
rid of that debt? And does it matter?
The United States will continue to
stand. Nothing much will change.
So at the end of the day, are
we should we even be worried about the
budget?
Yes.
And and I'll state there's a few things
here, and this again, this gets into the
wonky stuff. This is complicated, frustrating stuff that
(06:48):
the normal
the normal voter or listener probably doesn't pay
attention to, and that and that's okay.
So like I said, congress is supposed to
pass,
an annual budget. Right? It's usually 12 appropriation
acts. Usually, you would think that would be
better because then you could break down the
12
acts
and figure out exactly up or down vote,
(07:08):
but that never happens. That's why we get
a continuing resolution. There's never an agreement. You
can never get, a vote for closure or
anything like that. And when you think about
the budget
each year relative to the debt, that's where
things get very complicated,
to get things passed because this is this
is why I I agree with Massey
on principle, but in terms of practicality,
(07:30):
it makes no sense because what's the end
game? He wants to stand on principle that
he doesn't wanna vote for a continuing resolution.
Fine. I get it. However,
if he and he picks off another republican,
he makes that difficult for the speaker of
the house, Mike Johnson,
to find two eighteen
or the majority, whatever,
in terms of who's, you know, the last
month, we've had two congress congressmen pass away.
(07:52):
So whatever the majority is,
with regard to getting that two eighteen, if
you all of a sudden take away two
Republicans,
then what happens? You have to go get
Democrat votes, which means you have to get
Democrat,
priorities in order to get their votes.
So that become it's a math problem. Right?
It gets really complicated. So when you're talking
about all this from the practicality standpoint of
(08:15):
the budget, and then to your question of
does it really matter, it does because if
we have $36,000,000,000,000
in debt,
right, this is the accumulated debt in 02/2004,
or probably around February, let's say, turn of
the century. Right?
Our debt was about 5 to $6,000,000,000,000.
So we're talking in twenty five years,
(08:37):
this
5 to $6,000,000,000,000
debt that we had ballooned to 36,000,000,000,000.
Right? So multiplied by six.
And the budget deficit each year
is the delta between what we bring in
terms of tax revenue versus what we spend.
And if there's a deficit, it's not like
New Jersey where you have to have a
balanced budget,
(08:57):
they just borrow or print money borrow and
print money. It's that way. And you create
the budget deficit.
Meaning, if you take in $4,000,000,000,000
in tax revenue
and spend $6,000,000,000,000,
you have a $2,000,000,000,000
deficit.
And then that deficit gets added to the
debt.
And that's where we have all these problems.
(09:19):
And now the problem even further is because
interest rates are high, so the debt that
we have,
we have to pay higher interest rate on
it,
year after year. And that's why we're talking
about eight to nine hundred billion dollars a
year
just in
in interest payments on the debt. That's not
(09:40):
sustainable. Like, you bring it down to, you
know, if someone was making a hundred thousand
dollars and they had a hundred thousand dollars
in debt, you've got a % GDP,
to to income to debt ratio.
It's not sustainable, and this is, like, Soviet
level stuff,
where, you know, the Soviet Union collapsed because
they they just couldn't sustain
the the financials anymore.
(10:01):
So that has to be addressed
at some
point.
At some point, I think we have been
looking at that for ages.
I mean, literally ages
because
our government owes us
that largest portion.
(10:23):
Doesn't it?
I mean, aren't we the ones
that our government owes the money to with
whether it has to do with our businesses,
whether it has to do with our pensions?
Yes. And this is this is where DOSH
comes in. And, again,
DOSH isn't the first ones to try to,
you know, audit the federal government. Like, this
(10:45):
has happened before with other presidents
on both sides of the island, and nothing
ever comes of it because
they never had the ability like, Congress has
to do some of this through rescission,
but Trump can do it from the executive
branch with impoundment.
And then what Doge is doing is doing
the t for c. You've heard me say
this week in and week out. This is
this is what I'm used to in terms
(11:06):
of government contracting.
There's a clause, termination for convenience,
to literally eliminate and close down any existing
contract that hasn't ex expanded the remaining funds.
So you'd see some of these terminology on
on the Doge Twitter x website
and their website in terms of, hey. It
had a ceiling of a hundred million, and
we were able to claw back and cancel
(11:26):
40,000,000 blah blah blah. And
that way, Doge can do those cuts. But
the other piece of it, it's not just
the contract. It's the labor. What you had
talked about earlier, the government,
employees that we're now realizing, look,
Elon Musk did this with x. He fired
80% of the labor at Twitter and realized,
wow. The business still operates without 80% of
(11:48):
its labor. And he's using the same logic
with the federal government. What is the actual
productivity and efficiency to be able to process
and get the job done? And you've seen,
in the last couple days, the Department of
Education,
slashed their labor force in half,
and then now you've seen in the last
twenty four hours that USPS, which we know
(12:08):
loses
between 6 and $10,000,000,000
a year, it's not sustainable. If it was
UPS or FedEx,
they would go out of business,
and 10,000 employees from USPS are gonna be
laid off,
because it's not sustainable in the business model
that it's that it's in. So all these
things, when you talk about the labor, when
(12:29):
you talk about the contracts, what are the
contracts? The contracts are for services,
real estate, you know, occupied offices. If two
thirds of the federal government is working remote
or was working remote, obviously, Trump had them
come back. And those that don't, once once
you have those labor decreases, you don't need
as much office space. You can either get
rid of the leases,
pay the pay the
break early fee or whatever, or if you
(12:51):
own the buildings, put them those buildings on
the market. Obviously, there's plenty of real estate
developers who would love to get prime office
office space or any kind of building in
Washington, DC.
So all those things
can contribute
to make and and the fraud, waste, and
abuse
can contribute to your initial,
statement in question is, is it our money?
Yes. And if we get rid of all
(13:11):
this waste and all this nonsense and unproductivity
inefficiency,
then there's no reason that we should have
a solvency problem in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,
or anything for that matter
to be able to start paying down the
debt? Oh, well, I think I think each
and every one of us as citizens who
pay taxes, who are productive,
(13:32):
wants to see that happen. They want the
government to be able to repay
all that they have borrowed in order to
create perhaps other departments,
hire more bureaucrats,
all the other things
that create,
this horrible
budget problem that we see. And that is
it's our tax dollars being wasted.
(13:54):
Elon Musk and Department of Government Efficiency is
finding out where that waste is, and it's
not really waste. It's corruption.
It's bad contracts being kicked back
to politicians.
It's a lot of terrible things that have
happened. While we watched and didn't realize what
was going on behind the scenes,
(14:14):
this is what happened. Do you think that
the politicians that are crying out the loudest
about what Elon Musk is doing,
do you think perhaps they're crying out the
loudest because they are part of the corrupt
facilities
that they have, they have put so much
money into and got so much money out
(14:35):
of,
do you think they will ever be held
to task for what they've done to our
government and to the people who, in fact,
they've stolen the money from?
Yeah. You know, it's tough because no matter
what, it's all political theatrics. You know, everyone
can give a good speech. Everyone could give
a good, you know, statement on TV or
on the radio or anything like that. I
(14:55):
mean, usually, the
the
the few politicians, elected officials in congress
that are doing the right thing are the
ones that don't come out rich,
or don't come out making money, etcetera. And
this is where, you know, if you wanted
to get into heavy duty regulation in terms
of, elected officials because, you know, Nancy Pelosi
is the speaker of the house, yet she
(15:17):
can give stock tips to her husband,
to make millions and millions of dollars. Or
you have others that hire family members to
be security that get paid out of campaign
accounts. All kinds of, you know, stuff that's,
you know, debatable
with regard to, you know, how the money
is being spent. In terms of the accountability,
I mean, the best accountability, unfortunately,
(15:37):
I and I say this, unfortunately,
is to get them out of office because
that's what they want.
They like being in the position of power.
They like being the congress, and they like
being the senator or whatever.
And the accountability
is to get them out of that seat
in terms of the criminal
activity that likely happens.
The odds are are pretty pretty thin with
regard to that accountability.
(15:58):
But, ultimately,
anyone who's again, it doesn't matter.
It's to get a political
point or a political outcome
that they want.
And those that are screaming about government shutdowns
are the ones that yell at the Republicans
for doing the same thing. It's all it's
all BS,
and it's all theatrical like I said. So,
ultimately,
(16:19):
you have to move the football a few
yards this way while they're trying to hold
you back, and then in the next term,
next two years, it's it could go back
the other way. I mean, it's all about
trying to move the ball down the field,
in the given amount of time that you
have. Right? You think you're four downs if
you wanna extend the football analogy.
So it gets very frustrating for a lot
(16:39):
of people,
and that's why
what what can Trump actually accomplish,
from an executive standpoint? Obviously, he's proving that
with in spades because he's getting so much
freaking done and it's what, been maybe fifty
days.
And everything in between
is just
is just the gravy. So, again, what are
the big things? You have to secure the
(17:01):
border, you have to enforce the law, and
you have to audit the government. Those are
three main things. And then you have to
figure out the budget and get the economy
rolling. And a lot of people are getting
frustrated
because the daily gyrations of the stock market
and what Trump is doing with the tariffs.
And but they're starting in the middle of
the story.
They forget that all these countries, Canada and
(17:21):
Mexico included,
have already put
massive tariffs on The United States to protect
their own goods and services in their countries.
So everyone keeps looking at Trump as if
he's for, you know, Star Wars analogy. It's
episode one, and he's creating a blockade of
Naboo, and he's taxing the trade routes,
so that goods can't come and go. That's
(17:42):
not what's going on. He's not starting it.
He's evening the playing field because it's the
middle of the story that he's reacting to
the previous tariffs. It's not like this is
new. Trump's talked about this for forty years
about how America gets ripped off. And the
gyrations of the stock market, the market's trying
to react,
and I can say one of two things.
People that
had cash lying around are looking to buy
(18:04):
cheap stocks. Boom. They're gonna go buy cheap
stocks. They're gonna make a lot of money.
Those that had retirement,
accounts with stocks and the price has gone
down. It's only a loss if you're withdrawing
now or you're taking the money out.
So, again, what's good for one could be,
bad for another and vice versa
depending on the opportunity of the market. Same
(18:24):
thing with housing and all sorts of stuff.
And that's why the the the big takeaway
is that Trump has to break down
the economy.
He's gotta break it down so that he
can build it back up.
Do I have my my friend on Fifth
Herbert Friday?
Hey, Anne. Good morning. Good morning, Brian. How
the heck are you?
I'm doing well. Keeping busy. Keep well, yeah.
I expect that.
And that's not just with work. That's
with chasing Luke.
But, that being said, how are you?
(00:24):
What's new? And what's the big issue
that we need to be schooled on today?
Yeah.
I don't know. Take your pick, whether it's,
the continuing resolution
that the Democrats,
actually voted to support,
which allows the breathing room for Trump to
finally enact his agenda. So,
(00:46):
yeah, the the the typical theatrics when it
comes to government shutdowns looming as well as,
Trump's actions regarding immigration,
I think are the two big things that
have happened in the last,
probably, twenty twenty four to forty eight hours.
Yeah. Which is most important to the people?
Well, when you think about the continuing resolution,
(01:07):
look, this is something that is so
unbelievably frustrating because it's what happens when Congress
doesn't pass a budget.
And Yeah.
Both sides of the aisle consistently,
have the
the threat of
government shutdown, etcetera.
And yet Republicans always get blamed because the
(01:29):
media is obviously another arm of the Democratic
Party,
regardless of what happens. And the ironic part
was and, again, the political aspect
of,
passing
or trying to shut down the government. Everyone
it turned every democrat into a hypocrite,
that we're trying to oppose this.
And,
again, it's theatrical. The government doesn't actually shut
(01:52):
down. You've heard me say this before. It's
it's beyond theatrical in the sense that,
essential services continue, the military continue, all that
stuff. And usually what happens when a government
shutdown happens,
like we saw famously with the Obama administration,
they go and put,
block signs
at national parks where there's literally nobody working
(02:12):
anyway and says, oh, the government shut down.
You can't go walk here. Look at a
monument,
etcetera. I mean, it's it's it takes more
work to actually put the signs out than
actually anything else. And then government employees who
don't get paid
wind up, quote, unquote,
not working,
meaning productivity, and then they wind up getting
back pay anyway. So they get paid for
(02:33):
doing nothing.
So all of this is just theatrical. And,
again, I get it from,
the standpoint of why are we still doing
a continuing resolution. I mean, the last time,
we had an actual budget. I think that
was Boehner and Obama in twenty eleven twenty
eleven with the budget sequestration.
(02:54):
And
what's supposed to happen when you pass the
budget is you're supposed to pass
each of the appropriation
budgets, the multiple budgets
out of the subcommittees
to determine the basically, the funding for government.
And that doesn't happen because we just do
continuing resolutions,
meaning you just use the existing budget,
(03:16):
and you add on it and what you
have to do. And this is why this
was a Trump related activity
for the Republicans to pass because
to in order to get the tax cuts
that they're talking about to do budget reconciliation,
they have to raise the debt limit. What's
the debt limit? We all know. This is
basically think of it from a credit card
standpoint. It's your credit card limit.
Let's say you have a credit card. It's
(03:36):
$20,000
of credit limit.
And if you spend more than $20,000,
you've reached your limit. You you can't use
the credit card anymore. The same thing with
the debt limit to be able to do
this. And, of course, now that,
our interest payments
are the second highest,
annual cost
on the debt, obviously, you have to raise
the debt limit in order to be able
(03:56):
to play the financial
black magic that, unfortunately, our government's been doing
for decades and decades.
And and it's a shame because
we're we're we're 2025.
We're talking about fifteen years of continuing resolutions
where both sides of the aisle, both chambers
of Congress, the executive branch, whoever's been in
charge is not being able to actually pass
(04:18):
a budget.
And, again,
the left tries to turn this into the
Republicans are shutting it down,
regardless, and the media just amplifies that.
And
you take it a step further.
The Democrats and Schumer had to make a
choice last night in the senate that, okay,
there's a house passed bill because they were
(04:38):
hoping that Republicans
with such thin margins
would implode it themselves, and they could blame
them politically. It's always a blame game. Right?
Everything is political gamesmanship.
And because the Republicans are able to pass
it even with Massey voting against it, they
had enough. They could afford to lose one,
which was Massey out of Kentucky,
and they're able to pass it. So now
it's in the senate. So Schumer
(05:01):
again, he's to to vote for cloture to
end debate,
Republicans at 53. But you can't use a
simple majority or budget reconciliation
for this. You need 60 votes, which means
you need seven Democrats.
Oh, it is so confusing
to the average person
whose taxes
(05:22):
support this kind of
federal,
administration
and the boondoggle
that is
the budget.
It's
it's really
I I think it's difficult for most of
us to understand,
and it's more difficult for me to understand
why people are screaming about all of the
(05:44):
bureaucrats
being
let go,
having their their jobs taken from them,
when in fact our tax dollars have been
wasted on people whose jobs didn't have anything
to do
with
what,
happens to you and me, to the common
(06:04):
citizen.
So I I don't know
what side I actually stand on. I mean,
I know that it it's incredibly
it's incredibly
difficult
when you consider
the amount of of debt we've got as
you just mentioned.
But will we ever be able to get
(06:25):
rid of that debt? And does it matter?
The United States will continue to
stand. Nothing much will change.
So at the end of the day, are
we should we even be worried about the
budget?
Yes.
And and I'll state there's a few things
here, and this again, this gets into the
wonky stuff. This is complicated, frustrating stuff that
(06:48):
the normal
the normal voter or listener probably doesn't pay
attention to, and that and that's okay.
So like I said, congress is supposed to
pass,
an annual budget. Right? It's usually 12 appropriation
acts. Usually, you would think that would be
better because then you could break down the
12
acts
and figure out exactly up or down vote,
(07:08):
but that never happens. That's why we get
a continuing resolution. There's never an agreement. You
can never get, a vote for closure or
anything like that. And when you think about
the budget
each year relative to the debt, that's where
things get very complicated,
to get things passed because this is this
is why I I agree with Massey
on principle, but in terms of practicality,
(07:30):
it makes no sense because what's the end
game? He wants to stand on principle that
he doesn't wanna vote for a continuing resolution.
Fine. I get it. However,
if he and he picks off another republican,
he makes that difficult for the speaker of
the house, Mike Johnson,
to find two eighteen
or the majority, whatever,
in terms of who's, you know, the last
month, we've had two congress congressmen pass away.
(07:52):
So whatever the majority is,
with regard to getting that two eighteen, if
you all of a sudden take away two
Republicans,
then what happens? You have to go get
Democrat votes, which means you have to get
Democrat,
priorities in order to get their votes.
So that become it's a math problem. Right?
It gets really complicated. So when you're talking
about all this from the practicality standpoint of
(08:15):
the budget, and then to your question of
does it really matter, it does because if
we have $36,000,000,000,000
in debt,
right, this is the accumulated debt in 02/2004,
or probably around February, let's say, turn of
the century. Right?
Our debt was about 5 to $6,000,000,000,000.
So we're talking in twenty five years,
(08:37):
this
5 to $6,000,000,000,000
debt that we had ballooned to 36,000,000,000,000.
Right? So multiplied by six.
And the budget deficit each year
is the delta between what we bring in
terms of tax revenue versus what we spend.
And if there's a deficit, it's not like
New Jersey where you have to have a
balanced budget,
(08:57):
they just borrow or print money borrow and
print money. It's that way. And you create
the budget deficit.
Meaning, if you take in $4,000,000,000,000
in tax revenue
and spend $6,000,000,000,000,
you have a $2,000,000,000,000
deficit.
And then that deficit gets added to the
debt.
And that's where we have all these problems.
(09:19):
And now the problem even further is because
interest rates are high, so the debt that
we have,
we have to pay higher interest rate on
it,
year after year. And that's why we're talking
about eight to nine hundred billion dollars a
year
just in
in interest payments on the debt. That's not
(09:40):
sustainable. Like, you bring it down to, you
know, if someone was making a hundred thousand
dollars and they had a hundred thousand dollars
in debt, you've got a % GDP,
to to income to debt ratio.
It's not sustainable, and this is, like, Soviet
level stuff,
where, you know, the Soviet Union collapsed because
they they just couldn't sustain
the the financials anymore.
(10:01):
So that has to be addressed
at some
point.
At some point, I think we have been
looking at that for ages.
I mean, literally ages
because
our government owes us
that largest portion.
(10:23):
Doesn't it?
I mean, aren't we the ones
that our government owes the money to with
whether it has to do with our businesses,
whether it has to do with our pensions?
Yes. And this is this is where DOSH
comes in. And, again,
DOSH isn't the first ones to try to,
you know, audit the federal government. Like, this
(10:45):
has happened before with other presidents
on both sides of the island, and nothing
ever comes of it because
they never had the ability like, Congress has
to do some of this through rescission,
but Trump can do it from the executive
branch with impoundment.
And then what Doge is doing is doing
the t for c. You've heard me say
this week in and week out. This is
this is what I'm used to in terms
(11:06):
of government contracting.
There's a clause, termination for convenience,
to literally eliminate and close down any existing
contract that hasn't ex expanded the remaining funds.
So you'd see some of these terminology on
on the Doge Twitter x website
and their website in terms of, hey. It
had a ceiling of a hundred million, and
we were able to claw back and cancel
(11:26):
40,000,000 blah blah blah. And
that way, Doge can do those cuts. But
the other piece of it, it's not just
the contract. It's the labor. What you had
talked about earlier, the government,
employees that we're now realizing, look,
Elon Musk did this with x. He fired
80% of the labor at Twitter and realized,
wow. The business still operates without 80% of
(11:48):
its labor. And he's using the same logic
with the federal government. What is the actual
productivity and efficiency to be able to process
and get the job done? And you've seen,
in the last couple days, the Department of
Education,
slashed their labor force in half,
and then now you've seen in the last
twenty four hours that USPS, which we know
(12:08):
loses
between 6 and $10,000,000,000
a year, it's not sustainable. If it was
UPS or FedEx,
they would go out of business,
and 10,000 employees from USPS are gonna be
laid off,
because it's not sustainable in the business model
that it's that it's in. So all these
things, when you talk about the labor, when
(12:29):
you talk about the contracts, what are the
contracts? The contracts are for services,
real estate, you know, occupied offices. If two
thirds of the federal government is working remote
or was working remote, obviously, Trump had them
come back. And those that don't, once once
you have those labor decreases, you don't need
as much office space. You can either get
rid of the leases,
pay the pay the
break early fee or whatever, or if you
(12:51):
own the buildings, put them those buildings on
the market. Obviously, there's plenty of real estate
developers who would love to get prime office
office space or any kind of building in
Washington, DC.
So all those things
can contribute
to make and and the fraud, waste, and
abuse
can contribute to your initial,
statement in question is, is it our money?
Yes. And if we get rid of all
(13:11):
this waste and all this nonsense and unproductivity
inefficiency,
then there's no reason that we should have
a solvency problem in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,
or anything for that matter
to be able to start paying down the
debt? Oh, well, I think I think each
and every one of us as citizens who
pay taxes, who are productive,
(13:32):
wants to see that happen. They want the
government to be able to repay
all that they have borrowed in order to
create perhaps other departments,
hire more bureaucrats,
all the other things
that create,
this horrible
budget problem that we see. And that is
it's our tax dollars being wasted.
(13:54):
Elon Musk and Department of Government Efficiency is
finding out where that waste is, and it's
not really waste. It's corruption.
It's bad contracts being kicked back
to politicians.
It's a lot of terrible things that have
happened. While we watched and didn't realize what
was going on behind the scenes,
(14:14):
this is what happened. Do you think that
the politicians that are crying out the loudest
about what Elon Musk is doing,
do you think perhaps they're crying out the
loudest because they are part of the corrupt
facilities
that they have, they have put so much
money into and got so much money out
(14:35):
of,
do you think they will ever be held
to task for what they've done to our
government and to the people who, in fact,
they've stolen the money from?
Yeah. You know, it's tough because no matter
what, it's all political theatrics. You know, everyone
can give a good speech. Everyone could give
a good, you know, statement on TV or
on the radio or anything like that. I
(14:55):
mean, usually, the
the
the few politicians, elected officials in congress
that are doing the right thing are the
ones that don't come out rich,
or don't come out making money, etcetera. And
this is where, you know, if you wanted
to get into heavy duty regulation in terms
of, elected officials because, you know, Nancy Pelosi
is the speaker of the house, yet she
(15:17):
can give stock tips to her husband,
to make millions and millions of dollars. Or
you have others that hire family members to
be security that get paid out of campaign
accounts. All kinds of, you know, stuff that's,
you know, debatable
with regard to, you know, how the money
is being spent. In terms of the accountability,
I mean, the best accountability, unfortunately,
(15:37):
I and I say this, unfortunately,
is to get them out of office because
that's what they want.
They like being in the position of power.
They like being the congress, and they like
being the senator or whatever.
And the accountability
is to get them out of that seat
in terms of the criminal
activity that likely happens.
The odds are are pretty pretty thin with
regard to that accountability.
(15:58):
But, ultimately,
anyone who's again, it doesn't matter.
It's to get a political
point or a political outcome
that they want.
And those that are screaming about government shutdowns
are the ones that yell at the Republicans
for doing the same thing. It's all it's
all BS,
and it's all theatrical like I said. So,
ultimately,
(16:19):
you have to move the football a few
yards this way while they're trying to hold
you back, and then in the next term,
next two years, it's it could go back
the other way. I mean, it's all about
trying to move the ball down the field,
in the given amount of time that you
have. Right? You think you're four downs if
you wanna extend the football analogy.
So it gets very frustrating for a lot
(16:39):
of people,
and that's why
what what can Trump actually accomplish,
from an executive standpoint? Obviously, he's proving that
with in spades because he's getting so much
freaking done and it's what, been maybe fifty
days.
And everything in between
is just
is just the gravy. So, again, what are
the big things? You have to secure the
(17:01):
border, you have to enforce the law, and
you have to audit the government. Those are
three main things. And then you have to
figure out the budget and get the economy
rolling. And a lot of people are getting
frustrated
because the daily gyrations of the stock market
and what Trump is doing with the tariffs.
And but they're starting in the middle of
the story.
They forget that all these countries, Canada and
(17:21):
Mexico included,
have already put
massive tariffs on The United States to protect
their own goods and services in their countries.
So everyone keeps looking at Trump as if
he's for, you know, Star Wars analogy. It's
episode one, and he's creating a blockade of
Naboo, and he's taxing the trade routes,
so that goods can't come and go. That's
(17:42):
not what's going on. He's not starting it.
He's evening the playing field because it's the
middle of the story that he's reacting to
the previous tariffs. It's not like this is
new. Trump's talked about this for forty years
about how America gets ripped off. And the
gyrations of the stock market, the market's trying
to react,
and I can say one of two things.
People that
had cash lying around are looking to buy
(18:04):
cheap stocks. Boom. They're gonna go buy cheap
stocks. They're gonna make a lot of money.
Those that had retirement,
accounts with stocks and the price has gone
down. It's only a loss if you're withdrawing
now or you're taking the money out.
So, again, what's good for one could be,
bad for another and vice versa
depending on the opportunity of the market. Same
(18:24):
thing with housing and all sorts of stuff.
And that's why the the the big takeaway
is that Trump has to break down
the economy.
He's gotta break it down so that he
can build it back up.
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