Consumer Confidence is Down

Today on the Jimmy Barrett Show:

• Small business expert Brent Garrett on consumer confidence
• TPPF's Mandy Drogan on school vouchers

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
What we need is more common sense, more common We got the youth play
old College breaking down the world's nonsenseabout how American common sense. We'll see
us through with the common sense ofHouston. I'm just pro common sense for
Houston. From Houston is talking aboutcom. This is the Jimmy Barrett Show,

(00:26):
brought to you by viewin dot Com. Now here's Jimmy Barrett. All
Right, we've got Memorial Day weekendcoming up. Well, this upcoming weekend's
Memorial Day weekend, and that meanson we'll get an extra day off,
right, we get Monday off forsure. Excellent, excellent. You know

(00:47):
what that also means. It meansthe year is half over pretty much.
Well, that's the end of May, right, January, February, March,
April, May. Um. Iguess technically we're halfway done with the
year when we get to the endof June, July, August, September.
Yeah, so, any we werenot quite there yet, but we're
getting there. It's once again theyear. It's going by quickly. It's
going by fast, as it alwaysseems to do. All Right, what

(01:08):
don't I want to talk about today? There's a couple of things I want
to talk about to remind me,I want to talk about the A Leaf
MD, which man, maybe Ishould go ahead and do this now.
I'm gonna go ahead and do itnow while I'm thinking about it. Less
I forget because I did a littleriff on this one this morning. I
did one for my my podcast,which, by the way, you can

(01:30):
generally check out. We put thepodcast up at KTRH dot com. You
can check it out there, andit's it's posted on Facebook and Love of
the Places too. But I sawthis thing in I freely admit that I
don't have one hundred percent confirmation,but it wouldn't surprise me if it's true.
And if it is true, itmight actually be a strike of genius.
A Leaf I SD evidently has institutedstudent fines. This is for high

(01:53):
school student finds. The fines arefour failure to do certain things or for
doing certain things within the schools,and it sets up a structure fee structure,
if you will, of fines topay for certain things that you do.
For example, if you want togo to the bathroom and you need

(02:20):
a hall pass, it'll be adollar for the hall pass, a buck
if you don't bring paper to school. Therefore you're unprepared to learn. If
you don't bring paper to school.For a dollar, you can get some
paper. Notice that the fines arenot really expensive so far. If you

(02:45):
forget to bring a writing instrument toschool, that'll be a fine as well
of the dollar, and in thefines obviously can mount up. I'm assuming
that this is not based on theouter system that you have to pay the
fine or you don't get the paperor the pencil or whatever it is.
The janine. The one, theone that really got my attention though,
was a ten dollars fine for actuallyit's not even a fine, it's a

(03:10):
ten dollar fee to wrench your desk. I assume every desk that you have
is covered under the ten dollars.And the way I understand it is at
the end of the school year,the janitorial staff there has to do their
level best to try to get thosedesks back to square one and buy back
to square one. I'm talking aboutscraping all the gum that's underneath the desk,

(03:35):
which which kids have been putting gumunder desk ever since there's been students,
I think. But that's to scrapethe gum out from under the desk,
and also to try to clean upthe desk themselves from people using pens
to color doodles and and and puttheir name and other things in the desk.
So so, I don't know whatkind of reaction has got from parents,

(03:58):
but I'm thinking to myself, thisis actually kind of a good thing.
This is a good way to tryto teach kids that there's no such
thing as a free lunch, andthat certain behaviors are expected, and if
you don't live up to the behavior, then you will pay a price for
that, and it may not bea particularly stiff price, although I guess
if you keep acting up and youkeep failing to do things like bring a

(04:21):
pencil to school or paper or whatever, it can add up over time.
I think the idea here is isthat there's no excuses. We are a
learning environment. You come here tolearn, and you should bring the things
with you that you need in orderto learn. I think it's a great
idea, honestly, and I wouldn'tcare if parents complain about it or not.

(04:42):
I would just say, hey,listen, this is an opportunity to
sit down with your young student andexplain to them what the expectations are,
and the expectations are. You cometo school prepared to learn, and you
bring the things with you you needto learn. And if you have to
go to the bathroom in the middleof class and you're gonna mis material,
there's gonna be fine for that.Otherwise you need to manage your bathroom.
Did you ever have to other thanmaybe a rare emergency, did you ever

(05:05):
have to leave in the middle ofclass to go to the bathroom? Now,
I mean there's time between classes.I mean it wasn't time. Ye'd
be quick about it, but therewas time to go between classes. I
can never remember having to ask fora hall pass in the middle of class
to go to the bathroom. It'sjust it's a matter of planning, Okay.

(05:26):
So I just looked them for doingthat, even though the school years
almost over. In fact, alot of kids are getting out of school
this week. I think Rodney isthe last day for a lot of kids.
We have a lot of seniors whoare graduating this week and they're done.
So man, there you go,another school year up and gone before
you know it. It is amazing, is it not? How quickly it
goes? All? Right? Here'ssomething I want to share with you.

(05:46):
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(07:19):
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(07:45):
I know all you wanted was acold beer. All I ever wanted was
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(08:05):
make it a good beer, Sellme a cold beer. Back when boring
a moment, Jimmy Barrett show hereat am nine fifty KPRC. All right,
well, when consumer confidence is downa little bit, you have a
tendency to think that small business confidenceis probably down to and I would say

(08:26):
you're probably right about that, ofcourse for different reasons, well maybe not
for completely different reasons. Consumer confidenceI think is down because inflation continues to
erode or spending power, and that'salways kind of nerve racking for businesses.
It's gotten really expensive to borrow money, so if you're looking for seed money,
if you're looking for capital in orderto make an improvement on your business,

(08:48):
it's gotten a very expensive thing todo. And of course inflation is
heading you too, especially if you'rea retailer, restaurant owner, whatever,
and you're constantly having to raise yourmenu prices in order to be able to
keep up with inflation. Joints timeto give us an idea of where we're
app with a small business confidence.Who lacked there upright now? He is
a guy by the name of BrentGarrett. He's a small business expert.

(09:09):
He's up in North Texas, uparound the Dallas area. You can find
him by the way at Brent Garrettdot com. Welcome to the show,
sir. I realize we're going totalk in general terms here, but if
you had to give like a lettergrade A through F, where do you
think we are a small business confidencegoes right now? Well, it's kind
of interesting. It's a great question. Small business is new. Small business

(09:33):
has been on an uptrend for thelast seven years up to twenty two,
and then our twenty one, Ishould say, and then twenty two dropped
off about seven percent. I thinkyou mentioned inflation rates. We've talked a
little bit about small business competence,but I think new business is entering.
I think the fastest show folks.Folks are a little cautious about it right

(09:56):
now, but the people who arein business still still seem a little bullish
about what's ahead of us and thinkthat we were at the backdrop of maybe
this this downtrend. Okay, becausethe reason why I ask the question is
that it probably depends us a nonand what kind of business small business you're

(10:16):
in as far as where your confidencelevel is. If you are in something
that is in high demand and youhaven't seen a drop off in business now,
I would think you're still fairly confident, right Yeah, I think I
think you're right on target. Numberone is what what sector are we talking
about. I think service sectors arestill really strong, especially your trades.
UM labor supplies low in that area. But UM, the biggest issue is

(10:41):
for businesses. If you if yourun a retail business, let's say a
mom and pop, a donut shop, a small restaurant, UM food cost
U costicos sold just keep going up. UM consumer discretionary spending is down,
and I think business owner confidence isslightly down. And the only thing that's

(11:05):
killing that is credit line rates havenearly doubled for small businesses. Small business
makes about of the country's business asa whole. I know people are always
interested to hear that, but whenyou have a doubling and your ability to
capitalize your business, it's going toslow things down. There's just no doubt.

(11:31):
I would think they would have moreof an impact on people who are
thinking about starting a business than onexisting businesses, especially if the business is
otherwise fairly healthy. I mean,it's it's gotta be a little bit tougher
to get seed money to start abrand new business. How hard is it
right now to go to a bankand say I want to start whatever that
business is and get the banker tosay Oh, yeah, sure will invest
in that. Yeah. I mean, imagine, imagine this year you decide

(11:54):
to leave your job and start anew business. You're going to have to
You're gonna have to pay twice forworking capital for that startup business. Um.
That's if you have collateral or Christinecredit. Banks are required right now,
and they aren't. They're a littlehesitant to loan them out. Okay.
And when you say Christine credit,what is Christine credit? If you're

(12:15):
a business owner, is it workthe same as for business owners it does
for the rest of us? Well, I would say that if you want
to get the best rate, Christinecredit is probably in those those those seven
hundred plus credit ratings. UM.Banks really um, if you're a small
business, they're looking to collateralize thatloan, whether you have some equity and

(12:37):
in real estate or investments. Um. And that's that's really kind of it
starts up an avalanche problems. Ifyou've got investment portfolio that's dropped in twenty
thirty percent value, UM, you'reworking capitals decrease and wealth. The small
business bankers aren't thrilled about loaning allyour equipment. No, I can see

(13:03):
that. I wonder too, Brent. You know, we were at a
point here our unemployment rate, infact, the unemployment rate here in Texas
was down to like I want tosay, like three point six seven percent.
So unemployment is is particularly low instates like Texas. And I'm just
kind of wondering though, if thecapital is starting to dry up and we're

(13:24):
seeing it more difficult for a smallbusiness to expand or to get started,
what does this eventually do to theunemployment rate? Do you think? Well,
we're not seeing it typically in servicebusiness. And I'm personally my businesses
in Dallas, Texas, and I'vebeen in business in the Houston market and
with labor and what i'd like tosay it in Texas and we're a little

(13:48):
bit insulated and we're not seeing thesame trends as as you see in other
marketplace. As you mentioned, youknow, a business sectors, but I
also think regionally is an issue aswell in Texas. I would like to
describe it if you're if you're anestablished business, let's say that you've been
in business for over five years,it's going to look more like a speed

(14:11):
bump than it is a serious decline. Okay, And when you say a
speed bump. I mean, howmuch of a slowdown are you're You're thinking
here, you're thinking as far asthe job situation goes, you just think
we kind of level off where we'reat. Now, do we continue to
expland but maybe at a slower rate? How does that work? As far

(14:33):
as labor market, I still thinkit's very competitive. In my business sector.
I'm plumber trapped in an accountants body, and I served my first company
as a plumbing airfition business. Butas far as labor as a whole in
Texas, I think it's going toplane out a little bit and slightly increase,

(14:54):
slightly increase m. It just reallydepends on what the FED does with
rates because that's a huge effect ondiscretionary spending. And that's one of the
small UM what I would call leadingindicators for me. About six to twelve
months ago, I saw folks postponingthings that they would normally go ahead and

(15:20):
take care of. UM. Ithink I think by and large, the
consumer markets preserving capital saving or they'regoing into their savings to make ends meet.
Yeah, that's the scary thing,going into your savings. Brent Garrett
is with a small business expert bythe way has a book coming out here
shortly called Swirling the Drain. Ilove that why small businesses fail in how

(15:41):
to stop the leaks. So fromyour aspect, here, give me a
couple of reasons. What are thetop reasons why small businesses don't make it?
You know, um, I wouldsay the top three are there.
They're undercapitalized, so they're they're notdoomed before they before they start. The

(16:02):
most small business owners have a lotof passion, a lot of energy,
and they have the ability to runof your business, but they just don't
do the research before they go intotheir voice of business. And you'd be
surprised how many don't have a businessplan right behind that. And your business
plan would be, you know,your marketing plan. Planning your growth is

(16:26):
so very very important because there aresome very strategic key stages in a small
business growth. And that's what sortlingthe Drain is about. It's it's how
to give you a better chance toreprove your eyes to succeed. Because out
of the twenty percent of the businessesthat go into business this year will be
out in less than twelve months andin five years, half of those businesses

(16:49):
that started this year will be outof business. So in some cases you
have a better chance at the Blackchacktable in Vegas. That make you feel
very good. Hey, listen,I think I got a great example of
that. It's funny because right aroundthe corner for me, you know,
real estate is still really hot herein the Houston suburbs, and I think

(17:10):
it's still very hot where you upare up in Dallas as well. But
there's a lot of investing going on, and it seems like, at least
for builders, one of the thingsthey're doing now is they're building homes to
rent instead of homes to sell,because I think a lot of people think
that, especially with mortgage rates goinghigher, that there'll be a lot of
people who need a home, wanta home. I can afford the monthly

(17:30):
payment, but they can't afford thedown payment in order to be able to
buy the house. So we hada developer who came in and he bought
up this like this little sports clubhad a big building on the lot,
and they knocked that down. Thenthey cleared it and they got it all
ready to start building these condominiums.And then all of a sudden, I
see for sales sign back up andI said, what happened. Well,

(17:52):
it turns out that the person whowas doing the developing, they spent all
their money clearing the land and getthings ready to start building the condominiums.
By the time they got ready tostart building the condos, they didn't have
any money left to build the condosanymore. So now they have to turn
around and try to sell the property. And I'm thinking, how could you
go into a project like that andI have better planning of what this was

(18:14):
going to cost. Well, youjust hit the first point I meant to,
just a lack of cash to sustainan oral business cycle. You know,
typically business cycle is three to fiveyears. Of course, we had
pretty long run before we hit thislast dip. And uh, you know
it's not it's not the lack ofa good plan. It's the lack of

(18:36):
capitalizing your business so you can sustainit through your through your plan. And
UM. I like to say sometimespeople have what I call entrepreneurial seizure UM,
and they just don't quite get theplan. First second pieces is that
hey, what is it that you'rerunning to. UM. Typically people will

(18:57):
fall in love with the dream ofowning a business, which was outstanding,
probably the best country to ever everdo that. Um, but do we
really have all the skills and skillsskills needed to sustain that business through those
stages. There's a certain point whereyou you know, you own a job,

(19:18):
not a business. Then you movefrom um kind of a player coach.
Well, that requires a lot ofplanning, appreciation for accounting background,
and also, um, it requiressome core leadership and management skills that you
may or may not have, doesn'tmayby, can't be, can't acquire.
But that's what's rolling the drain kindof addresses. UM. You know,

(19:42):
we know when we're about ready togo down the tubes, and hopefully we
can stop that process. Um.You know what I say is the the
student. The teacher appears when thestudents willing, and hopefully they'll they'll get
to this book before um they startswirling the drain. All right, well,

(20:02):
good stuff. When is the bookout? By the way, I
think I think we got it slatedforward just right at the end of twenty
four right now, okay, allright, we'll keep our eyes open forward.
But thanks for joining us today,Brent. Good to talk to you,
appreciate it. Thanks. Jumy appreciateit, you bet. Brent Garrett
joining us here on AM nine fiftykPr SE quick to break back with mort

(20:22):
a moment on the Jimmy Barrett Show. All right, going into the weekend,
it looked like school vouchers were prettymuch dead here in Texas for this
go around. You know the wayit works in our state legislature. If

(20:45):
you want something to get voted on, it has it has to make it
through the House with the Speaker ofthe House supporting it. If you want
something to get a vote in theSenate, then the Lieutenant governor needs has
supported. A lot of people thinkit's about the governor in you know,
not to say the governor doesn't havea voice. He can certainly lead the
way and saying that, you know, what is important to him as far

(21:07):
as what pieces of legislation get actedupon. But at the end of the
day, it's the Lieutenant Governor andthe Speaker of the House that either make
it happen or make it go away. Joining us to talk about where we're
at with school vouchers and other schoolissues. Mandy Drogan from the Texas Public
Policy Foundation. Last I heard,Mandy, it's kind of down to the

(21:27):
nitty gritty here there is a schoolvoucher piece of legislation that may or may
not make it through the state legislature. Where are we at with this any
idea? Oh my goodness, wehad a huge morning this morning in the
Senate Education Committee. What just happenedforty five minutes ago is historic and it

(21:51):
is putting parents back in charge.So when we talk about the different bills
in the process, when you getto this point in the legislative session,
you can kind of see what hasmoved, what has it and what's considered
dead. A lot of people thoughtthat that empowering parents was dead for this
session and that the governor was goingto be calling us back for a special

(22:12):
session. But there is life andit is exciting. So what happened was
how Still one hundred moved through theHouse a couple weeks ago, and it
was a bill that increases public schoolfunding and so priority of public schools and
we always want to make sure thatwe're taking care of public schools and that

(22:34):
kids and schools have the resources theyneed to get a great education. But
when it got over to the Senate, Senator Creighton, the chairman of the
Public Education Committee added to it andhe expanded it, and the two most
exciting things that he added to itwas number one, open enrollment. Open
enrollment, what is public school parentempowerment, public school choice, which would

(22:59):
allow for parents to select a schooloutside of their district. A lot of
people think we have this, andto some degree, we do, and
some districts allow that to happen.But many districts, many of our really
high quality districts that have open seatsfor kids, they charge tuition. For
example, Alamo Heights down near SanAntonio, they charge for next year's school

(23:22):
year nine thousand, nine hundred dollarsto kids that want to change their public
school to go to school in thatdistrict, which is that's wild. It's
public schools. Love JOYISD used tocharge fourteen thousand dollars and now they charge
about nine thousand dollars. So openenrollment is very exciting for parents that want
to keep their kid in a highquality public school. Now, the most

(23:45):
exciting part is education savings accounts.Senator Creighton added back in the language from
SB eight which the eesa the educationsavings account program. If you will remember,
these essays provide about eight thousand dollarsto parents who want to select a
school a private school. And justas exciting, this is eligible to five

(24:11):
point seven million Texas students. That'show many people are eligible for this program.
Is it is incredible. It isso exciting to watch this play out,
and I am very cautiously optimistic thatwe are going to empower parents with
multiple choices and we will see amassive change in the success of students both

(24:33):
in our public school system but alsothose that need a different option in the
private school. So that's where weare. Okay, so you said this
got through the Senate today, Doesthis have to go back to the House.
Does this move on to the governorfor a signature or where we have
with that? So it'll go toit's called conference committee. It'll go to
a conference committee whill you'll have somewhereabout three, maybe a couple more members

(24:57):
from each chamber, so Senate andHouse members. That will go to a
conference committee and they'll hash out thefinal detail and then once they come to
an agreement, it will go backto the House for a more vote.
Okay, so they got they gottahash out some possible changes. Then it
goes back to the House for anothervote, and then once the House passes

(25:18):
that, it moves on and thenit would go to the governor's office,
okay for his signature, he said, hopefully, assuming, assuming that a
deal will be made in the House. I guess we don't know that for
sure yet, but I guess we'llhave to wait and see on that.
One of the things I had heardMandy about it was that one of the
compromises that went into it because oneof the big stumbling blocks, of course

(25:41):
are the teachers unions and in thepublic school systems who are worried about losing
students to private education or to otherssystems. And my understanding is, I
don't know if it's still in therenot you can certainly tell us. But
one of the things that evidently gotagreed to is that if a school system
loses a students, they're they're goingto get twelve thousand dollars for that student,

(26:03):
even though they don't have that studentanymore. Is that's still in there
the whole harmless provision, it's tenthousand and yes, that is still in
there. So for these districts thatare really concerned that parent and fighting to
let parents make a choice because parentsmay choose a different school for their child.

(26:23):
There is a short term right now, it's listed at five years in
this current committee substitute for how stillone hundred for five years. If a
student leads and there is a netoutflow or a net loss of students,
then they would get what's called ahold harmless provision, so a portion of

(26:45):
the students funding would still go tothat public school system. So there they
have an increase in their per studentfunding because they would get this money and
they would not be educating the child. Is there any concern that this rewards
school systems that are not that good. They lose students to other systems that
are better, but they end upgetting just as much money as if they

(27:10):
is if they had that student.Yes, yes, and that is a
real and very valid concern. Forsure. What we are looking for is
that one there's a sunset provision onit, so it's not in perpetuity,
it's not happening forever. It givesthem For those that are very concerned that

(27:30):
this should cause significant problems again toparticularly our rule schools where that the loss
of a few students could have animpact on their bottom line, that it
gives them a little bit more comfortthat, Okay, financially, this is
not going to be this massive drainand our inability to operate. As you

(27:52):
and I both know, there isno evidence across the entire nation that there
is a massive outflow or mass exodusof students from the public school system.
What we are excited to see isthat when an education savings account is passed,
that the public schools will be incentivizedto do better. If they see
parents that are tempted or are actuallyusing an education savings account, they will

(28:17):
say, what is it about theother school that parents are choosing, and
how do we do better? Andthe great news is that thirty two other
states plus the District of Columbia havethese programs, and we can see how
much better it makes the public schoolsystem because that they are incinivized by the
parents. Whereas right now, Ithink that if you pay attention to what's

(28:41):
going on in far too many ofour school systems, you've got leaders,
you've got superintendents, you've got administratorsthat have been indoctrinated for lack of a
better term, and they believe thatit is their job to push down certain
values, these culture wards that wesee into the classroom and we see it
time and time again, and thiswill have change that well hopefully. So

(29:06):
hey want to ask you too whileI have you here. I know that
there's been a lot of play inthe media lately about the attitude that the
liberals Democrats seem to have regarding schoolchildren and whose kids they are, and
they seem to be of the beliefgoing. I guess this goes all the
way back to Hillary Clinton, right. It takes a village where the belief,
where the belief is is that achild going to a public school isn't

(29:29):
really your child as a parent,it's all of our children. It's it's
the responsibility of the school and theteachers and the administrators in the state just
as much as it is the responsibilityof the parent. Insane greet. Yes,
that is correct, and we didjust see a teacher make that statement.
She was out of Florida. Butthat is the general sentiment that we

(29:49):
see from far too many teachers thatoh, when they or administrator or principles,
when they step into our school,they are ours to educate as we
see fit. Well, fine,but we need to be able to leave
if we disagree with that and thatis where the difference of opinion stands.
By children. I have a sixyear old, three year old, the

(30:11):
one year old. They are mine, my responsibility, and I will choose
how and where they are educated.And every single parent has that right.
It is not the state. Itis not their prerogative or their ability or
their right to change the values andthe education quality that I want for my

(30:32):
children. And that's why empowering parentshas caught on like wildfire. That's why
parents, even with kids in thepublic school system, they want this because
they want the power return to them. They want the principles and the teachers
and the administrators to be responsive tothe parents versus to the system that has
been taken over by ideologue. Andthat's what we're fighting against. Meet up

(30:55):
better system to educate with high qualityand to that this woke indoctrination that's going
on into many of our school systems. All right, Mandy Drogan, always
good to hear from you. I'llkeep my fingers cross on the state legislature
for you. And thanks for joiningus today. Appreciate it, Thank you
for having me. You bet anytime, from the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Mandy Drogan back with more in amoment Jimmy Bart Show, Am nine to

(31:18):
fifty KPRC. All right, well, today, supposedly the President and the
Speaker of the House, Kevin mccarthur, you're supposed to be talking about,

(31:40):
you know, reducing the debt,coming up with some sort of a deal
to raise the debt ceiling. Idon't know if they're making any progress there,
and now I guess we'll find outsoon enough and probably have more to
talk to you about that tomorrow.But in the meantime, the logic involved,
or the lack there of it,The part that I always find interesting
is how easy for us to bescared into thinking that, you know,

(32:06):
budget cuts are something that we canabsorb and then somehow we're going to miss
critical services if we cut the budget, when the reality is there's so much
waste in government that it's super easyto find waste and never ever ever heard
any program that really is important.But you know, the thing that Democrats

(32:27):
are doing so effectively, which Iguess is easier to do when you have
people who are not really paying muchattention to the finer details. What they're
really good at doing is to scareyou into thinking that money from WICK or
Social Security or some other major programthat people depend on is going to end
up losing money if the budget getscut. And the reality is we could

(32:49):
trim billions upon billions of hundreds ofbillions of dollars from the federal budget and
nobody would ever miss it. Bysuspending or doing away with prams. They
really don't amount to anything, reallydon't have any impact on anybody. Representative
Lisa McLean, she's from Michigan.Sounds like she's from Michigan. I forgot

(33:09):
what a Michigan accident sounds like.You know, I was born, raised
in Michigan. I don't know ifI ever sounded like her or not.
I don't think so, but butyou know, she sounds very Michigan anyway.
Here she is talking about how Democratsare so good at scaring you about
what they're going to eliminate from thebudget, when the reality is there's plenty
of other things they can take out. One of my colleagues, Appropriations Ranking

(33:31):
Member Rosa Delora, sent a letterto the agencies, right, asking them
what cuts would look like in theirdepartment. Right, Okay, so let
me use my family. Hey,my husband comes home, Hey, Lisa.
We're way overmaxed out on her creditcards. We have got to make
some cuts. What I says,you know what, I'm okay, great.

(33:54):
I have four kids. I'm justnot feeding them now. I'm still
getting my nails, I'm still goingto the gym, and my god,
I am not discontinuing my wine subscription. The kids they cannot eat. I
mean, he would never do that, but that's exactly what my colleagues on
the other side of the aisle aredoing. And let me give you some

(34:15):
specific examples. So the Eggs SecretaryTom Vyslac said, we would cut one
point four billion of cuts to Wick. That's where your prioritiens. The first
thing we're gonna cut is Wick.By God, Now forget about the one

(34:37):
point five billion in tree planning.Nope, we're gonna cut Wick. We're
saving those trees. Okay, letme give you another one. Secretary Buddha
Judge who's just done a phenomenal job, and I say that with quite sarcasm,
says, if this budget that theRepublicans pass, here's what we would

(34:59):
cut A two point six billion dollarsin air traffic controllers. That's the first
thing we're gonna cut because you know, anybody who's flown, uh everything's on
time and uh nothing run runs late. Right, that's the first thing we're
gonna cut. Why have another ideainstead of cutting my foods, chop my

(35:20):
food I would go to maybe let'ssay one point nine billion dollars that the
FAA spends on heat island hot spots. Not sure what that is, or
gaps in tree canopy coverage. That'sthey have billions of dollars allocated for that.

(35:45):
Well, the the the island hotspots are like, you know,
like the concrete runways, you know, because they you know, runways,
concrete does attract heat, I'll grantyou that, and they do warm up
and they probably get very hot comparedto the surrounding area. But it's an
airport. How important is it tolower the temperature on the runway when it's

(36:07):
an airport. And as far asthe tree canopies, we all know what
a tree canopy is, right whenwhen you've got you know, a tree
that you know, the branches outand it provide shade. So they're spending
billions of dollars on you know,heat islands and tree canopies that you know,

(36:28):
you probably could cut that from thebudget and nobody would ever miss a
thing. Um one point, someoneever billion on trees. Yeah, we
could probably put a hold on that, and quite a few other programs too.
And that's just from the Department Transportation. You can go into any federal
government department and it would be veryeasy to identify and eliminate waste. It's

(36:53):
it's literally everywhere now. It maynot be waste to the people who are
getting the money, because after all, they're making money from this that they
otherwise wouldn't be making, but it'scertainly a waste to you and to me
into our tax dollars being spent.It's not hard. It really is not
hard to find waste and to cutit from the budget. As I've said

(37:13):
before, I think the simplest thingto do is you go to every department
ad and you say, I wantyou to find, however many billions of
dollars worth waste. And no,we're not going to eliminate air traffic controllers,
and we're not going to eliminate thingsthat are truly important, but we're
going to eliminate anything that just isn'treally necessary right now, And there are
plenty of things that would make thelist. We would have no problem cutting

(37:37):
that budget. In fact, we'dhave no problem cutting that budget a whole
lot more than what they're talking aboutcutting it. I mean, they're talking
about very minor cuts to the budgetright now. I would be much more
draconian. If it were up tome, I would force I would force
some serious cuts across the entire federalbudget, because it's to me, it's
not good enough to stop growing thedebt. It is important that we're getting

(38:01):
at the point in life where weneed to start repaying the debt, where
we need to make the debt goaway. We keep wanting to hand this
ticking time bomb off to not justnot really are It's not really my kids
anymore. It's my grandchildren and mygreat grandchildren who we're going to get stuck
with this ticking time bomb. Andit's high time we did something about it.

(38:24):
It really is all right for lackof time here, let me grab
one. Do I have time realquick to grab grab this one? Grab
me the great Gutfield cut. BecauseI found this very interesting that shopping balls
all around the country instead of puttingin replacement stores because they're having a hard
time doing that. As these anchorstores are leaving, they're using the space
and putting in pickle ball courts.Here's great gutfield. Apparently balls around the

(38:47):
country are turning to pick a ballto fill vacant spaces left by stores that
closed during the pandemic. It's theathletic activity so irrelevant even trans women ignore
it. According to people I know, pickleball is a sport. It's like

(39:07):
tennis if you don't like to movearound a lot. It's also a medical
condition if you get stuck in ajar of gherkins nickleball. Pickle ball was
invented in nineteen sixty five, theyear Cat was born. You win by
hitting a ball over a net untilone opponent eventually gets bored in leaves.

(39:31):
Yet, somehow the amount of peopleplaying has jumped one hundred and fifty nine
percent over the past three years,and that includes a number of those players
who have fallen and they can't getup. It's the current sport of choice
for late middle age suburbanites who hitthe quarts before the relief factors weren't off

(39:52):
and the sealis kicks in. Wecall that the Mike Baker Sweet Shop now,
courts are taking over spaces formerly occupiedby retail giants like bed Bath and
beyond Old Navy and Sacks pickleball courts. Do you ever played pickaball? I
can't decide. Is is it?It's it's kind of like if ping pong

(40:15):
and tennis had an illegitimate child.I guess that's what pickleball would be,
right. I don't really understand.You know, white people are so enamored
with it right now, but I'mguessing that turning, you know, these
empty retail spaces into pickaball courts,that's that's a temporary solution at best,
right, I mean, because atsome point in time people go, well
this is boring. I'm tired ofplaying pickaball. I gotta find something else

(40:37):
to do. I don't think it'sa fat that's gonna last all day long.
Could be wrong, but I doubtit. All Right, y'all have
a great day. We'll see tomorrowmorning, bright and early, starting at
five am with schera A News Radioseven forty KTRH. We are back here
at four am, nine fifty KPRC