Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Scott Vordiez Congressman Mike Flood made it in here before
Rose started getting shut down. Welcome to news Radio eleven
ten kfab got to stay the.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Whole time because I'm supposed to go to Lincoln next
so it doesn't sound like I'm getting there very fast.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Well, you know, you're in good shape here. You could walk,
jog maybe a little bit.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Have you ever been to what is that?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
The market to market relay?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
You can do that.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
How do I get there? Yeah? Yeah, just well there's
an interstate Just walk, it's fine, go to Platt Smith
and over to Eagle. Yeah. All good, Great to see
you here. Thank you very much for coming in.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
You bet.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
You know, let's start here with your your previous one
of your previous jobs. Here the state legislature. They're in
special session trying to find meaningful property tax relief. In
all your years in the legislature, including a speaker, this
is something that comes up every year. Do you see
any hope that maybe what Governor Pillen is forcing them
to focus specifically on might lead to something that Nebraskans
(00:57):
have been hoping for for years, meaningful property tax For
you know, I have never been to governor of Nebraska.
But I think when you serve in that role, every
time you step out of that black suburban wherever you
are in the state, the number one thing that you
hear about from the minute you get up to the
minute you go to bed is property taxes. And I
think what Governor Pillon has done is he said, Okay,
(01:17):
take everything off the table, focus in on this, and
let's get a solution. There's there's no other business that
the legislature should be doing besides finding property tax relief.
Now that's easier said than done. You got to gore
people's axes to do it. You got to make difficult decisions.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
What I would say, having been a legislature for a while,
this is what this is how legislators operate. This is
the process. It's deliberative, it's messy, it's ugly, it's sticky.
That's why they call it making sausage. Don't get thrown
into the drama of every single minute. Wait until we
see the end result. And I'm hopeful that Governor Pillen's leadership,
(01:54):
the leadership and the legislature I worked with. I mean,
if anybody knows anything about Leuwyn Lenihan she's on a mission,
and when she's on a mission, something's going to happen.
And I know that firsthand. I lived under her reign
on the Revenue Committee.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I wonder, though, and you've served some of these guys,
I wonder how many of it, how many of the
problems here are policy driven and how many are personality driven,
including those who aren't happy with the governor, especially not
happy with him making them come back here for a
special session.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Well, something that's changed since I was the Speaker of
the legislature, and it's all over the country, is this
performance politics. It's this idea that what I say is
going to be on Twitter, it's going to be on Instagram,
it's going to be and I'm going to up my
brand and all this other stuff. There's always personality politics,
and every legislature, with every governor, there's always the friction
between the executive branch and the legislative branch. I think
(02:46):
at the end of the day, even those folks that
may not be inclined to want to support the governor,
they're going to look at a reasonable proposal that says
this will lower property taxes, and they're going to decide
for themselves. Do I want to be on the record
lowing property taxes or do I want to be against it?
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Is that a thing? I mean, do you talk about
this in the House of Representatives? Maybe hushed whispers over
a drink later, kind of like a young athlete coming
up with some nil probabilities. He's got a big social
media following. Do you guys look and go like, Wow,
look how many followers AOC has on Twitter or anything
like that?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Is that sad to say that there are people in
Congress that exist for that more than they do the legislating.
Who oh, well, where shall we start?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Dan Crenshaw, who's a good follow I'm not saying it bad.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
You know, well, I think it's fair to say maybe
Lauren Bobert, you know Annapolo Luna?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Yahay sure, AOC? Yeah, what do you think of your
swimsuit clad maga congressman from Florida.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I did see that yesterday. You know what I see,
Anna Paula Luna. She's pushing a baby in a stroller
with her husband everywhere they go, Like I, whenever I
see her outside of the chamber, she's pushing a stroller
with her husband. So I guess I was a little
surprised to that, but whatever, let's recreate.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
That photo shoot with you. I would break the internet.
You got an American flag bikini or something you can
put on here? Lucy does. Lucy's got one in her car.
That would be terrible. I left it there, so yeah, maybe,
well we can talk about that maybe some other time here,
going back here to a congressional issue that has roots
(04:21):
in Nebraska for relief. You were on with Gary and
Jim the other day and a lot of people didn't
hear it because they can't stand Jim. So recap for
those who missed that when you were on kfab's Warning News.
What is it you're looking to do when it comes
to insurance?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Well, I'm on the Housing Committee in the Congress. But
here's the deal. Nebraska has been given the award by
an analysis by bank Rate having the most expensive home
insurance average premiums in the country. Right now, the average
Nebraska family is paying five thousand dollars a year in
home insurance, and that is three thousand dollars more than
(04:58):
the average America homeowner.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
How is that we don't have hurricanes We've had certainly
we've had hurricane like storms recently. But why is this.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Well, when they look at the claims what we have.
You know, yes we have tornadoes, but we have hail,
and we've had a lot of hail in Nebraska over
the last couple of years. Now, keep in mind, the
premiums that we're talking about right now, they don't include
the storms a couple of months ago. They don't include
the storm last week or the week before. This is
all prior history. But for a family in Nebraska average
(05:31):
household income ninety six thousand right now, six percent of
the entire gross income for a household in Nebraska goes
to home hazard insurance. I mean, I'll tell you what.
Just this year, most homeowners saw a sixty percent increase
in their home insurance. And a lot of people have
no idea that that happened because you get so many
(05:52):
different letters from the insurance company. You've got their privacy disclaimer,
You've got there. You know, if you're in a mutual,
do you want to have a proxy at the meeting?
We got to open those up because I opened mine
up and I saw mine went from a really bad
number to an even worse number, a sixty percent increase.
And Nebraska families, you take that plus property taxes and
(06:14):
the fact that you can't sell your home right now
because you'd have to give up your two point nine
percent mortgage. That's a real hit. And so we got
to do a couple of things as Nebraskans. We got
to get people to install low We got to get
people to install impact resistant roofing. And you know, I
think the legislature should pass a tax credit because it
costs thirty percent more to get an impact resistant Yeah,
(06:34):
it's more money after they come over and say, all right,
so here are your three options. Right, you can put
down the shingle like you already had. We can put
down a slightly better shingle that we withstand hailstones of
this size, or if you know, Scotty Scheffler is just
banging golf balls against your roof day and night. This
is the shingle that would even protect you in situations
(06:55):
like that. And there's a cost associated with it, and
most people go for the middle of the road, which's
better than nothing. The only way we're going to get
out of this is number one, to reduce the risk
that we have across the state. And what we can
do in Congress, I think is we can say what
the secondary problem we have is all the reinsurers that
are sitting above State Farm or Battlecreek Farmer's Mutual or
(07:17):
Farmer's Mutual of Nebraska. They then spread that risk out
to a reinsurer, and those are often domiciled in foreign countries.
There's reason to believe that we were to redomesticate them
into the United States, we'd see better competition in lower rates.
But Nebraska, unfortunately, right now, if you're a homeowner in Nebraska,
you are paying more than the rest of the nation
(07:37):
by a long shot. And if you haven't seen your number,
it's likely to go up. And guess what with your mortgage.
You don't even write to check. It goes right into
your escro it comes right out of your bank account.
It's automatic. You're going to wake up in October and say,
why am I missing another six hundred dollars this month?
Speaker 1 (07:54):
But these storms also go into Iowa. Iowa's got plenty
of story. Well, how come more so much more expense
of then Iowa.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Well that's a good question. You know, like hail happens
all over the country, tornadoes Think about Oklahoma, Texas and
all their tornadoes, and I my plan in October is
to get the state Department of Insurance, get some of
the federal folks in, get the insurers, the actuaries, actual homeowners,
and we're going to sit down. We're going to start
working on this to put a plan together for Congress
and the state legislature to reduce the risk, break down
(08:22):
the premiums. But as a state, we got to confront this.
And you know, in Texas, and I should say not Texas,
in Florida and California, they have insurance departments that have
a ceiling on what a insurance company could charge. And
that sounds like a good idea to people like Kamala Harris.
But what happens is State Farm looks at that and
they say we're out. All these other folks say we're out.
(08:44):
Then you deal with some sub rate insurance company that
sells you something under the cap, but it's not worth
the paper it's printed on. That's Nebraska First District Representative
Mike Flood. Can you hang out for one more segment
with us?
Speaker 1 (08:57):
You bet? Okay? Good? Because I could be here till eleven.
It sounds like I'm not going to Lincoln. We'll see
if we can get you to Lincoln. We've got Nebraska
first District Congressman Mike Flood here in the studios of
news radio eleven ten kfab who's running our country right now?
Good question.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
You know, after the debate, I called, you know, upon
the cabinet to look at the twenty fifth Amendment because
it was clear to me he did not know what
was going on. And obviously the rest of the nation,
including Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, the entire Democratic establishment.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Don't forget about George Clooney. Oh, of course, the celebrity status.
So he had to bow out a running for re election,
but he's still the president. He's who's running this country? Well,
I have the feeling here's a story that then the
Speaker of the House has said this. Mike Johnson goes
over to see him. Mike Johnson, of course, our speaker
(09:52):
in the House. You look a little bit like him,
you think, So, yeah, have you heard that?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Not yet?
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Okay, super handsome guys.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Oh yeah, oh, I know you're lying. But so Johnson
goes over to see Biden. He's upset. You know, he's
also a Louisiana and he's upset about this LNG embargo.
You know that we weren't going to be able to
sell it all in g over to Europe. And he's like,
wait a second, this is Louisiana and he's talking to
President Biden, and Biden goes, I didn't do that. He's like,
(10:18):
mister President, you did You signed this right here, like
it's right here, and he's like, I did not do that,
and he didn't recall signing him. He comes back and
tells us the Republican majority of the House, and it's like,
who is running this place? And it's not Harris, It's
somebody in that west wing that's got everything going. And
(10:40):
you know, sometimes I think it's Elizabeth Warren. There's really
she has tentacles all over that town.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Gross. You know, there's always a mechanism there for any president.
But when you have situations like that, or President Biden
coming out getting all mad that the Especial Council had
brought up his son dying, and then you hear the
transcript so you read the transcripts and realize he didn't
(11:07):
bring it up. Biden himself did and then got confused
about it. And people are saying, well, we need to
hear the audio of this. I don't know if there's
still a cry for that. Where we've got a subpoena out.
We're working on the Department of Justice. You know, Merrick
Garland is stonewalling us. We've tried to hold him in contempt.
I mean, it's a mess, but well, the end of
(11:28):
the day, we got to focus on winning in November.
And you know what Kamala Harris is doing every single
day is throwing more money at whatever she thinks. The
problem is, here's what she's suggesting today and this significant
economic policy announcement that's supposed to come today, Kamala Harris
is going to unveil a plan that holds corporations accountable,
(11:50):
especially when it comes to price gouging when it comes
to food and groceries, says the first ever federal ban
on price gouging on food and groceries to make clear
that big corporations can't unfairly exploit consumers to run up
excessive corporate profits. The prices of food and groceries have
(12:11):
certainly gone up the last few years thanks to Joe
Biden under the Biden Harris administration, but they really haven't
gone up to the level like a lot of other
stuff you know, lumber, insurance, race and things like that.
So first of all, what's she talking about? Secondly, can
she do this? This sounds like communists.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
This is the silly season where everybody says everything and
none of it matters. There's nothing she said is ever
going to happen. It's only meant to get a headline
to keep herself in the news. The people who make
corn flakes aren't going to make corn flakes if all
of a sudden there's a price cap on it that
Kamala Harris says is going to be there and guess
what you get? No corn flakes, you get no ho hos,
you get no essential you know, staples in your in
(12:49):
your your diet. She can't do this. This is this
is the Democrat plan. The other thing they want to
do is they want to throw twenty five thousand dollars
at you to buy a new house. What do you
think that's going to do to home prices? Have we
not learned anything from the last three years with inflation
and more federal spending and we're thirty five trillion dollars
in debt.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, and healthcare, our student loans now that the government
took over student loans. Governments are like, oh, it's being
backed by the government. Looks like the cost of education
is going to go up. I've got a story for
you about student loans. We all know what Biden and
Harris have done on student loans. They want to, they
want to. They say it's free, but it's not free.
We're all paying for everybody else's student loans. So it
(13:29):
mounts to five billion dollars a month. So earlier in
the year this year, in the late last year, I
got an amendment in to the budget to.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Say, all right, October, well, actually was last year October one,
twenty twenty three, all of the folks came back to
have to pay their student loans. I was waving my
arms saying, like, in June and July twenty twenty three,
we've got to put more money in the budget to
make sure that the student loan servicers like Nildett and
others can accommodate all of these new borrowers that are
(13:58):
coming into the system. They're not new, but they're now
having to repay their loans. So we are able to
get that in the budget. So, okay, October one happens,
suddenly the Department of Education. Well, they go out and
cut a deal with all the student loan servicers, and
the student loan servicers say, hey, by the way, don't
(14:19):
you're not fully funding us to even process these loans,
so we're not going to be able to meet all
of the standards that the Consumer Protection Bureau has. And
they say it's okay, it's okay, just do the job
you got to do. On the other hand, here comes
Biden's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and they say, wait a second,
you're not following the law. You are violating the law
(14:43):
because you're not providing this many minutes of wait time
less than you promised, and all this other stuff. And
so you've got one arm of the federal government saying,
all right, we have to collect these loans. You've got
the other arm of the Biden Harris government saying you're
doing it wrong. We're going to find you with the
goal of putting all these services who's out of business.
And then they're going to say nobody could process the loans.
(15:04):
We have to write these off. One arm doing this,
one arm doing that. It's coordinated. These agencies know what
they're doing. They're strangling the servicers they're strangling the system
that allow us for the repayment so that they can
work around as a United States Supreme Court that said
what you're doing is wrong. You don't have the authority
to do it. They use these back channels, and that's
(15:24):
exactly what Kamala Harris wants to do. With everything else.
They skirt the will of Congress and the Supreme Court,
and they call the rest of us threats to democracy.
That is an incredible story, But you know what else
it is. It's adorable because you haven't been in Congress
long enough to realize they know all of this.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
They absolutely and it's not about actually getting anything done. See,
you're still idealistic and like we could actually do something.
They've been there, Joe Biden's been there for the better
part of the last three hundred years. He knows all
you got to do. Dangle something shiny out there. We're
going to forgive your student loan debt. Oh, I like
(16:05):
the sound of that. We're going to bring down the
cost of food and groceries. Oh, that's great. We're going
to bring down the cost of all these prescription drugs
for seniors. Hey, that's really good. And you're not supposed
to think about who's actually paying for it? Can they
do this if it's a good idea? How come Congress
isn't voting on it? Is this constitutional? Why are we
suddenly saying that the judicial branch shouldn't be doing or
(16:28):
what they're doing from the executive branch without the legislative
branch getting involved. Don't worry about all of that. It's
not about doing and accomplishing anything. It's about getting re elected.
And that's why I think that you're just so cute
talking about these stories about you know, thinking that they
might actually want to do something. They know that they're not.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
The best thing that happened, though, is that Chevron decision
from the Supreme Court that said no more rulemaking in
areas that you don't have authority for, which is going
to change the game from a Congress perspective where the
returns to the Article one power returns to Congress where
it belongs.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
That's Nebraska first District Representative Mike Flood. Let's talk about
a few other issues here related to what you guys
are working on in the House. You guys control a
lot of the money. It'd be going either to Israel
or Ukraine, Ukraine stepped things up the other day by
suddenly going into Russia, and that caused a bunch of
Russian forces to double back to the homeland and try
(17:26):
and defend there and get them out of Ukraine. But
here we are two and a half years there since October.
We're coming up on a year in a couple of
months here for what's going on in the Middle East,
and no end insight for the money going into these places.
Your thoughts, well, there's not another supplemental that's on the
horizon for either Ukraine or Israel. Let's take Israel first,
(17:48):
I thought. Benjamin Netanyahu rolled into the United States Congress
and gave one of the best speeches. I listened to
his speech. I'm sitting there and thinking, this is leadership.
He understood what the mission was. He explained why it
was important that is Reel fights Iran so that we
don't have to do that. And I have a parallel
then to Ukraine. Either the Ukrainians do this or Putin
(18:08):
ends up in Poland and we end up in Poland.
Putin ends up in the Baltics.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
And when you talk to the president, you know, the
the premiers of those Baltic states they will tell you
they are convinced that he's coming for them. Next, I
heard from a leader of a very high leader in Europe.
They said that Vladimir Putin is the Adolf Hitler of
the twenty first century.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
And I believe it. This is one of the few
Hitler correlations that might actually have some roots in it.
You know. But the people quick to say, oh, Trump
and Putin air buddies. You know, they're best friends, and
Putin wants Trump to get elected. Take a look at
these world leaders. Let's look at Russia, Let's look at China,
look at Iran. Whoever's running jimas before Israel kills that guy.
(18:57):
Do you think any of them are concerns learned about
what Kamala Harris might do to them if she's president
of the United States?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
No, I mean had what did President Obama do when
Russia took Crimea?
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Nothing?
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Absolutely nothing? And because of that we find ourselves in
this situation. We should have stopped it. Then we should
have armed the Ukrainians. Then we should have shut this off.
And then after Crimea was all, we're not going for
anything else. Well, now look at him, he's doing exactly
what happened in nineteen thirty eight. You know, like at
the end of the day, this guy is a trained killer.
His troops are conscripts that are going into Ukraine and
(19:35):
they're raping women, They're killing women and children. There have
been two hundred thousand deaths in Ukraine. They're you know,
well over two hundred thousand Russian soldiers have died. This
is not a little operation. This is a full out
aggressive war. And when you talk to leaders in Germany
and Poland and France and you know, the Czech Republic
(19:57):
in Austria, they some of them, like Germany, Germany was
kind of aligning with Russia, with the Nords, with the
you know, the natural gas pipeline, all the Lord state. Yeah,
they've done a complete one eighty. They are now paying
their fair share for the military. They're well over two
percent GDP. And they know Russia is a problem, and
they connect them with China, and they connect it with Iran.
(20:17):
They are with the United States.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
So looking at this upcoming presidential election, a lot of
the national pundits, I mean, they just came out with
a brand new portrait of Kamala Harris in the same
way as the Obama iconic Hope portrait. This is Kamala
Harris and shades of blue and white, bright red lips,
and rather than hope, it says forward, which is so
(20:43):
incredibly Soviet communistic. This is so Marxist. But you know
it's like, she's you know, the next one, and she's
gonna win in November. Why even bother to have an election?
What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Well, if you like San Francisco's Nancy Pelosi, you'll San
Francisco's Kamala Harris. This is where she comes from. This
is her playground. That is a town that nobody in
my friend's circle could probably live in. And there's a
reason people are leaving California and droves because they have
crossed so many lines out there. They are trying to
(21:19):
run the rest of the country from California. And if
you put another California in office, we're going to have
all sorts of things. You can't race pigs, which they
did that in California. They have to have their own
little home basically that can't be in any kind of
could find animal feeding operation. There's so many bad things
that will happen. I Kamala gets there, at least with
Joe Biden. You had somebody that's been in Congress for
(21:40):
a while and kind of knew there are both sides
of the story. I worry that Kamala Harris comes in
and there's no second side of the story. It's just
California's way. If you like Gavin Newsam, you'll love Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
I've talked to Senator Grassley a lot over the years,
and he and Joe Biden have both been in Congress
for a while. There for a minute or two, and
you know, it came up together and he says, you know,
we used to have these good, robust debates, but it
was never personal. And he says, it's all changed. You know,
He's changed. The whole game has changed. And I think
(22:14):
when you go talk to people in Nebraska's first district,
I think you'll find a lot of people who long
for that. But at the same time, they're the same
ones who were making it personal, getting on social media,
battling each other, fighting, trying to make enemies out of friends.
I mean, is there when you look at where this
country is going in the next couple of election cycles,
(22:34):
do you have any room for optimism there? I hope,
So you.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Know, I went to Congress, and all I knew about
Congress was what I saw on TV. And when I
walked in those doors, I found out that out of
the two hundred and twenty two Republicans, two hundred are
Eagle Scouts, men and women from across the country. They
do the right thing, they want to do the right thing.
They're in it for the right reasons. They are ethical,
they are honorable, they are smart, and it gave me
(22:58):
a lot of confidence that big things can get done.
The challenge is when you turn on the TV, the
folks that aren't necessarily attending their committee hearings or working
on the bills or actually making the bills move through Congress,
they're on TV. And in order to sell advertising on
that level, you got to create a huge problem that
you can never solve, but you can talk about it
for months on end. And thanks to Joe Biden, we
(23:18):
have the border, which could have been solved if you
just kept the policies that Donald Trump had, but no,
he had to go with the other side. And now
we've got this in retractable problem that we need the
president's help on and it sells on TV every single night,
And so I will tell you there's a lot of
people in Congress that are doing the right thing. They're
there for the right reasons, and they believe in the
(23:39):
future of America and that the best is ahead. And
I do too. But I can tell you it is
disheartening sometimes to see the dysfunction that's come out of
even the Republican side. Right. Like I came from the
legislature where we got our act together when I was
the speaker, and we got things done and we moved on.
It wasn't personal. That's so much different in Congress. But
I would not give up hope. There's a lot to
(24:00):
be proud about there. As Senator John McCain said in
his book, It's worth the fighting for. I think so absolutely.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
That's your first district Congressman in Nebraska, Mike Flood, thanks
for coming in here and spending so much time today.
My pleasure.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Good to see you, Scott Boys Mornings nine to eleven,
Our News Radio eleven ten KFAB
Scott Vordiez Congressman Mike Flood made it in here before
Rose started getting shut down. Welcome to news Radio eleven
ten kfab got to stay the.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Whole time because I'm supposed to go to Lincoln next
so it doesn't sound like I'm getting there very fast.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Well, you know, you're in good shape here. You could walk,
jog maybe a little bit.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Have you ever been to what is that?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
The market to market relay?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
You can do that.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
How do I get there? Yeah? Yeah, just well there's
an interstate Just walk, it's fine, go to Platt Smith
and over to Eagle. Yeah. All good, Great to see
you here. Thank you very much for coming in.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
You bet.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
You know, let's start here with your your previous one
of your previous jobs. Here the state legislature. They're in
special session trying to find meaningful property tax relief. In
all your years in the legislature, including a speaker, this
is something that comes up every year. Do you see
any hope that maybe what Governor Pillen is forcing them
to focus specifically on might lead to something that Nebraskans
(00:57):
have been hoping for for years, meaningful property tax For
you know, I have never been to governor of Nebraska.
But I think when you serve in that role, every
time you step out of that black suburban wherever you
are in the state, the number one thing that you
hear about from the minute you get up to the
minute you go to bed is property taxes. And I
think what Governor Pillon has done is he said, Okay,
(01:17):
take everything off the table, focus in on this, and
let's get a solution. There's there's no other business that
the legislature should be doing besides finding property tax relief.
Now that's easier said than done. You got to gore
people's axes to do it. You got to make difficult decisions.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
What I would say, having been a legislature for a while,
this is what this is how legislators operate. This is
the process. It's deliberative, it's messy, it's ugly, it's sticky.
That's why they call it making sausage. Don't get thrown
into the drama of every single minute. Wait until we
see the end result. And I'm hopeful that Governor Pillen's leadership,
(01:54):
the leadership and the legislature I worked with. I mean,
if anybody knows anything about Leuwyn Lenihan she's on a mission,
and when she's on a mission, something's going to happen.
And I know that firsthand. I lived under her reign
on the Revenue Committee.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I wonder, though, and you've served some of these guys,
I wonder how many of it, how many of the
problems here are policy driven and how many are personality driven,
including those who aren't happy with the governor, especially not
happy with him making them come back here for a
special session.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Well, something that's changed since I was the Speaker of
the legislature, and it's all over the country, is this
performance politics. It's this idea that what I say is
going to be on Twitter, it's going to be on Instagram,
it's going to be and I'm going to up my
brand and all this other stuff. There's always personality politics,
and every legislature, with every governor, there's always the friction
between the executive branch and the legislative branch. I think
(02:46):
at the end of the day, even those folks that
may not be inclined to want to support the governor,
they're going to look at a reasonable proposal that says
this will lower property taxes, and they're going to decide
for themselves. Do I want to be on the record
lowing property taxes or do I want to be against it?
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Is that a thing? I mean, do you talk about
this in the House of Representatives? Maybe hushed whispers over
a drink later, kind of like a young athlete coming
up with some nil probabilities. He's got a big social
media following. Do you guys look and go like, Wow,
look how many followers AOC has on Twitter or anything
like that?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Is that sad to say that there are people in
Congress that exist for that more than they do the legislating.
Who oh, well, where shall we start?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Dan Crenshaw, who's a good follow I'm not saying it bad.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
You know, well, I think it's fair to say maybe
Lauren Bobert, you know Annapolo Luna?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Yahay sure, AOC? Yeah, what do you think of your
swimsuit clad maga congressman from Florida.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I did see that yesterday. You know what I see,
Anna Paula Luna. She's pushing a baby in a stroller
with her husband everywhere they go, Like I, whenever I
see her outside of the chamber, she's pushing a stroller
with her husband. So I guess I was a little
surprised to that, but whatever, let's recreate.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
That photo shoot with you. I would break the internet.
You got an American flag bikini or something you can
put on here? Lucy does. Lucy's got one in her car.
That would be terrible. I left it there, so yeah, maybe,
well we can talk about that maybe some other time here,
going back here to a congressional issue that has roots
(04:21):
in Nebraska for relief. You were on with Gary and
Jim the other day and a lot of people didn't
hear it because they can't stand Jim. So recap for
those who missed that when you were on kfab's Warning News.
What is it you're looking to do when it comes
to insurance?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Well, I'm on the Housing Committee in the Congress. But
here's the deal. Nebraska has been given the award by
an analysis by bank Rate having the most expensive home
insurance average premiums in the country. Right now, the average
Nebraska family is paying five thousand dollars a year in
home insurance, and that is three thousand dollars more than
(04:58):
the average America homeowner.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
How is that we don't have hurricanes We've had certainly
we've had hurricane like storms recently. But why is this.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Well, when they look at the claims what we have.
You know, yes we have tornadoes, but we have hail,
and we've had a lot of hail in Nebraska over
the last couple of years. Now, keep in mind, the
premiums that we're talking about right now, they don't include
the storms a couple of months ago. They don't include
the storm last week or the week before. This is
all prior history. But for a family in Nebraska average
(05:31):
household income ninety six thousand right now, six percent of
the entire gross income for a household in Nebraska goes
to home hazard insurance. I mean, I'll tell you what.
Just this year, most homeowners saw a sixty percent increase
in their home insurance. And a lot of people have
no idea that that happened because you get so many
(05:52):
different letters from the insurance company. You've got their privacy disclaimer,
You've got there. You know, if you're in a mutual,
do you want to have a proxy at the meeting?
We got to open those up because I opened mine
up and I saw mine went from a really bad
number to an even worse number, a sixty percent increase.
And Nebraska families, you take that plus property taxes and
(06:14):
the fact that you can't sell your home right now
because you'd have to give up your two point nine
percent mortgage. That's a real hit. And so we got
to do a couple of things as Nebraskans. We got
to get people to install low We got to get
people to install impact resistant roofing. And you know, I
think the legislature should pass a tax credit because it
costs thirty percent more to get an impact resistant Yeah,
(06:34):
it's more money after they come over and say, all right,
so here are your three options. Right, you can put
down the shingle like you already had. We can put
down a slightly better shingle that we withstand hailstones of
this size, or if you know, Scotty Scheffler is just
banging golf balls against your roof day and night. This
is the shingle that would even protect you in situations
(06:55):
like that. And there's a cost associated with it, and
most people go for the middle of the road, which's
better than nothing. The only way we're going to get
out of this is number one, to reduce the risk
that we have across the state. And what we can
do in Congress, I think is we can say what
the secondary problem we have is all the reinsurers that
are sitting above State Farm or Battlecreek Farmer's Mutual or
(07:17):
Farmer's Mutual of Nebraska. They then spread that risk out
to a reinsurer, and those are often domiciled in foreign countries.
There's reason to believe that we were to redomesticate them
into the United States, we'd see better competition in lower rates.
But Nebraska, unfortunately, right now, if you're a homeowner in Nebraska,
you are paying more than the rest of the nation
(07:37):
by a long shot. And if you haven't seen your number,
it's likely to go up. And guess what with your mortgage.
You don't even write to check. It goes right into
your escro it comes right out of your bank account.
It's automatic. You're going to wake up in October and say,
why am I missing another six hundred dollars this month?
Speaker 1 (07:54):
But these storms also go into Iowa. Iowa's got plenty
of story. Well, how come more so much more expense
of then Iowa.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Well that's a good question. You know, like hail happens
all over the country, tornadoes Think about Oklahoma, Texas and
all their tornadoes, and I my plan in October is
to get the state Department of Insurance, get some of
the federal folks in, get the insurers, the actuaries, actual homeowners,
and we're going to sit down. We're going to start
working on this to put a plan together for Congress
and the state legislature to reduce the risk, break down
(08:22):
the premiums. But as a state, we got to confront this.
And you know, in Texas, and I should say not Texas,
in Florida and California, they have insurance departments that have
a ceiling on what a insurance company could charge. And
that sounds like a good idea to people like Kamala Harris.
But what happens is State Farm looks at that and
they say we're out. All these other folks say we're out.
(08:44):
Then you deal with some sub rate insurance company that
sells you something under the cap, but it's not worth
the paper it's printed on. That's Nebraska First District Representative
Mike Flood. Can you hang out for one more segment
with us?
Speaker 1 (08:57):
You bet? Okay? Good? Because I could be here till eleven.
It sounds like I'm not going to Lincoln. We'll see
if we can get you to Lincoln. We've got Nebraska
first District Congressman Mike Flood here in the studios of
news radio eleven ten kfab who's running our country right now?
Good question.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
You know, after the debate, I called, you know, upon
the cabinet to look at the twenty fifth Amendment because
it was clear to me he did not know what
was going on. And obviously the rest of the nation,
including Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, the entire Democratic establishment.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Don't forget about George Clooney. Oh, of course, the celebrity status.
So he had to bow out a running for re election,
but he's still the president. He's who's running this country? Well,
I have the feeling here's a story that then the
Speaker of the House has said this. Mike Johnson goes
over to see him. Mike Johnson, of course, our speaker
(09:52):
in the House. You look a little bit like him,
you think, So, yeah, have you heard that?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Not yet?
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Okay, super handsome guys.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Oh yeah, oh, I know you're lying. But so Johnson
goes over to see Biden. He's upset. You know, he's
also a Louisiana and he's upset about this LNG embargo.
You know that we weren't going to be able to
sell it all in g over to Europe. And he's like,
wait a second, this is Louisiana and he's talking to
President Biden, and Biden goes, I didn't do that. He's like,
(10:18):
mister President, you did You signed this right here, like
it's right here, and he's like, I did not do that,
and he didn't recall signing him. He comes back and
tells us the Republican majority of the House, and it's like,
who is running this place? And it's not Harris, It's
somebody in that west wing that's got everything going. And
(10:40):
you know, sometimes I think it's Elizabeth Warren. There's really
she has tentacles all over that town.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Gross. You know, there's always a mechanism there for any president.
But when you have situations like that, or President Biden
coming out getting all mad that the Especial Council had
brought up his son dying, and then you hear the
transcript so you read the transcripts and realize he didn't
(11:07):
bring it up. Biden himself did and then got confused
about it. And people are saying, well, we need to
hear the audio of this. I don't know if there's
still a cry for that. Where we've got a subpoena out.
We're working on the Department of Justice. You know, Merrick
Garland is stonewalling us. We've tried to hold him in contempt.
I mean, it's a mess, but well, the end of
(11:28):
the day, we got to focus on winning in November.
And you know what Kamala Harris is doing every single
day is throwing more money at whatever she thinks. The
problem is, here's what she's suggesting today and this significant
economic policy announcement that's supposed to come today, Kamala Harris
is going to unveil a plan that holds corporations accountable,
(11:50):
especially when it comes to price gouging when it comes
to food and groceries, says the first ever federal ban
on price gouging on food and groceries to make clear
that big corporations can't unfairly exploit consumers to run up
excessive corporate profits. The prices of food and groceries have
(12:11):
certainly gone up the last few years thanks to Joe
Biden under the Biden Harris administration, but they really haven't
gone up to the level like a lot of other
stuff you know, lumber, insurance, race and things like that.
So first of all, what's she talking about? Secondly, can
she do this? This sounds like communists.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
This is the silly season where everybody says everything and
none of it matters. There's nothing she said is ever
going to happen. It's only meant to get a headline
to keep herself in the news. The people who make
corn flakes aren't going to make corn flakes if all
of a sudden there's a price cap on it that
Kamala Harris says is going to be there and guess
what you get? No corn flakes, you get no ho hos,
you get no essential you know, staples in your in
(12:49):
your your diet. She can't do this. This is this
is the Democrat plan. The other thing they want to
do is they want to throw twenty five thousand dollars
at you to buy a new house. What do you
think that's going to do to home prices? Have we
not learned anything from the last three years with inflation
and more federal spending and we're thirty five trillion dollars
in debt.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, and healthcare, our student loans now that the government
took over student loans. Governments are like, oh, it's being
backed by the government. Looks like the cost of education
is going to go up. I've got a story for
you about student loans. We all know what Biden and
Harris have done on student loans. They want to, they
want to. They say it's free, but it's not free.
We're all paying for everybody else's student loans. So it
(13:29):
mounts to five billion dollars a month. So earlier in
the year this year, in the late last year, I
got an amendment in to the budget to.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Say, all right, October, well, actually was last year October one,
twenty twenty three, all of the folks came back to
have to pay their student loans. I was waving my
arms saying, like, in June and July twenty twenty three,
we've got to put more money in the budget to
make sure that the student loan servicers like Nildett and
others can accommodate all of these new borrowers that are
(13:58):
coming into the system. They're not new, but they're now
having to repay their loans. So we are able to
get that in the budget. So, okay, October one happens,
suddenly the Department of Education. Well, they go out and
cut a deal with all the student loan servicers, and
the student loan servicers say, hey, by the way, don't
(14:19):
you're not fully funding us to even process these loans,
so we're not going to be able to meet all
of the standards that the Consumer Protection Bureau has. And
they say it's okay, it's okay, just do the job
you got to do. On the other hand, here comes
Biden's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and they say, wait a second,
you're not following the law. You are violating the law
(14:43):
because you're not providing this many minutes of wait time
less than you promised, and all this other stuff. And
so you've got one arm of the federal government saying,
all right, we have to collect these loans. You've got
the other arm of the Biden Harris government saying you're
doing it wrong. We're going to find you with the
goal of putting all these services who's out of business.
And then they're going to say nobody could process the loans.
(15:04):
We have to write these off. One arm doing this,
one arm doing that. It's coordinated. These agencies know what
they're doing. They're strangling the servicers they're strangling the system
that allow us for the repayment so that they can
work around as a United States Supreme Court that said
what you're doing is wrong. You don't have the authority
to do it. They use these back channels, and that's
(15:24):
exactly what Kamala Harris wants to do. With everything else.
They skirt the will of Congress and the Supreme Court,
and they call the rest of us threats to democracy.
That is an incredible story, But you know what else
it is. It's adorable because you haven't been in Congress
long enough to realize they know all of this.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
They absolutely and it's not about actually getting anything done. See,
you're still idealistic and like we could actually do something.
They've been there, Joe Biden's been there for the better
part of the last three hundred years. He knows all
you got to do. Dangle something shiny out there. We're
going to forgive your student loan debt. Oh, I like
(16:05):
the sound of that. We're going to bring down the
cost of food and groceries. Oh, that's great. We're going
to bring down the cost of all these prescription drugs
for seniors. Hey, that's really good. And you're not supposed
to think about who's actually paying for it? Can they
do this if it's a good idea? How come Congress
isn't voting on it? Is this constitutional? Why are we
suddenly saying that the judicial branch shouldn't be doing or
(16:28):
what they're doing from the executive branch without the legislative
branch getting involved. Don't worry about all of that. It's
not about doing and accomplishing anything. It's about getting re elected.
And that's why I think that you're just so cute
talking about these stories about you know, thinking that they
might actually want to do something. They know that they're not.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
The best thing that happened, though, is that Chevron decision
from the Supreme Court that said no more rulemaking in
areas that you don't have authority for, which is going
to change the game from a Congress perspective where the
returns to the Article one power returns to Congress where
it belongs.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
That's Nebraska first District Representative Mike Flood. Let's talk about
a few other issues here related to what you guys
are working on in the House. You guys control a
lot of the money. It'd be going either to Israel
or Ukraine, Ukraine stepped things up the other day by
suddenly going into Russia, and that caused a bunch of
Russian forces to double back to the homeland and try
(17:26):
and defend there and get them out of Ukraine. But
here we are two and a half years there since October.
We're coming up on a year in a couple of
months here for what's going on in the Middle East,
and no end insight for the money going into these places.
Your thoughts, well, there's not another supplemental that's on the
horizon for either Ukraine or Israel. Let's take Israel first,
(17:48):
I thought. Benjamin Netanyahu rolled into the United States Congress
and gave one of the best speeches. I listened to
his speech. I'm sitting there and thinking, this is leadership.
He understood what the mission was. He explained why it
was important that is Reel fights Iran so that we
don't have to do that. And I have a parallel
then to Ukraine. Either the Ukrainians do this or Putin
(18:08):
ends up in Poland and we end up in Poland.
Putin ends up in the Baltics.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
And when you talk to the president, you know, the
the premiers of those Baltic states they will tell you
they are convinced that he's coming for them. Next, I
heard from a leader of a very high leader in Europe.
They said that Vladimir Putin is the Adolf Hitler of
the twenty first century.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
And I believe it. This is one of the few
Hitler correlations that might actually have some roots in it.
You know. But the people quick to say, oh, Trump
and Putin air buddies. You know, they're best friends, and
Putin wants Trump to get elected. Take a look at
these world leaders. Let's look at Russia, Let's look at China,
look at Iran. Whoever's running jimas before Israel kills that guy.
(18:57):
Do you think any of them are concerns learned about
what Kamala Harris might do to them if she's president
of the United States?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
No, I mean had what did President Obama do when
Russia took Crimea?
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Nothing?
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Absolutely nothing? And because of that we find ourselves in
this situation. We should have stopped it. Then we should
have armed the Ukrainians. Then we should have shut this off.
And then after Crimea was all, we're not going for
anything else. Well, now look at him, he's doing exactly
what happened in nineteen thirty eight. You know, like at
the end of the day, this guy is a trained killer.
His troops are conscripts that are going into Ukraine and
(19:35):
they're raping women, They're killing women and children. There have
been two hundred thousand deaths in Ukraine. They're you know,
well over two hundred thousand Russian soldiers have died. This
is not a little operation. This is a full out
aggressive war. And when you talk to leaders in Germany
and Poland and France and you know, the Czech Republic
(19:57):
in Austria, they some of them, like Germany, Germany was
kind of aligning with Russia, with the Nords, with the
you know, the natural gas pipeline, all the Lord state. Yeah,
they've done a complete one eighty. They are now paying
their fair share for the military. They're well over two
percent GDP. And they know Russia is a problem, and
they connect them with China, and they connect it with Iran.
(20:17):
They are with the United States.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
So looking at this upcoming presidential election, a lot of
the national pundits, I mean, they just came out with
a brand new portrait of Kamala Harris in the same
way as the Obama iconic Hope portrait. This is Kamala
Harris and shades of blue and white, bright red lips,
and rather than hope, it says forward, which is so
(20:43):
incredibly Soviet communistic. This is so Marxist. But you know
it's like, she's you know, the next one, and she's
gonna win in November. Why even bother to have an election?
What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Well, if you like San Francisco's Nancy Pelosi, you'll San
Francisco's Kamala Harris. This is where she comes from. This
is her playground. That is a town that nobody in
my friend's circle could probably live in. And there's a
reason people are leaving California and droves because they have
crossed so many lines out there. They are trying to
(21:19):
run the rest of the country from California. And if
you put another California in office, we're going to have
all sorts of things. You can't race pigs, which they
did that in California. They have to have their own
little home basically that can't be in any kind of
could find animal feeding operation. There's so many bad things
that will happen. I Kamala gets there, at least with
Joe Biden. You had somebody that's been in Congress for
(21:40):
a while and kind of knew there are both sides
of the story. I worry that Kamala Harris comes in
and there's no second side of the story. It's just
California's way. If you like Gavin Newsam, you'll love Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
I've talked to Senator Grassley a lot over the years,
and he and Joe Biden have both been in Congress
for a while. There for a minute or two, and
you know, it came up together and he says, you know,
we used to have these good, robust debates, but it
was never personal. And he says, it's all changed. You know,
He's changed. The whole game has changed. And I think
(22:14):
when you go talk to people in Nebraska's first district,
I think you'll find a lot of people who long
for that. But at the same time, they're the same
ones who were making it personal, getting on social media,
battling each other, fighting, trying to make enemies out of friends.
I mean, is there when you look at where this
country is going in the next couple of election cycles,
(22:34):
do you have any room for optimism there? I hope,
So you.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Know, I went to Congress, and all I knew about
Congress was what I saw on TV. And when I
walked in those doors, I found out that out of
the two hundred and twenty two Republicans, two hundred are
Eagle Scouts, men and women from across the country. They
do the right thing, they want to do the right thing.
They're in it for the right reasons. They are ethical,
they are honorable, they are smart, and it gave me
(22:58):
a lot of confidence that big things can get done.
The challenge is when you turn on the TV, the
folks that aren't necessarily attending their committee hearings or working
on the bills or actually making the bills move through Congress,
they're on TV. And in order to sell advertising on
that level, you got to create a huge problem that
you can never solve, but you can talk about it
for months on end. And thanks to Joe Biden, we
(23:18):
have the border, which could have been solved if you
just kept the policies that Donald Trump had, but no,
he had to go with the other side. And now
we've got this in retractable problem that we need the
president's help on and it sells on TV every single night,
And so I will tell you there's a lot of
people in Congress that are doing the right thing. They're
there for the right reasons, and they believe in the
(23:39):
future of America and that the best is ahead. And
I do too. But I can tell you it is
disheartening sometimes to see the dysfunction that's come out of
even the Republican side. Right. Like I came from the
legislature where we got our act together when I was
the speaker, and we got things done and we moved on.
It wasn't personal. That's so much different in Congress. But
I would not give up hope. There's a lot to
(24:00):
be proud about there. As Senator John McCain said in
his book, It's worth the fighting for. I think so absolutely.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
That's your first district Congressman in Nebraska, Mike Flood, thanks
for coming in here and spending so much time today.
My pleasure.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Good to see you, Scott Boys Mornings nine to eleven,
Our News Radio eleven ten KFAB
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