What is going on in Austin?

Today on the Jimmy Barrett Show:

• TPPF's James Quinterro on senate bill 9

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, what we need is more common sense.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Breaking down the world's nonsense about how American common sense.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
We'll see us through with the common sense of Houston.
I'm just pro common sense for Houston. From Houston. This
is the Jimmy Barrett Show, brought to you by viewind
dot Com.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Now here's Jimmy Barrett.

Speaker 4 (00:31):
We rarely have I ever talked about music on the show.
Today will be an exception. We will talk about music
on the show at least for the opening segment of
the show today. And the reason why we're going to
talk about music is again a survey that I saw
that I found fascinating. I don't know who your favorite
rock band is, but it is really quite amazing how

(00:52):
many times some of your favorite singers and some of
your favorite bands have performed their songs in concert to
the point where you would think that they have to
be tired of singing the song. I mean, just tired
of singing the song. How many times could you sing
a song before you went, oh my god, I'm not
gonna sing that anymore. But then you realize I have

(01:14):
to sing it. People are here to watch this concert,
they're expecting to hear this song. If I don't do
this song, then there's gonna be a problem. Here is
the list of some of the you know, more famous
singer slash rock bands and how many times they've sung
a particular song put it in their set. And by

(01:36):
the way, it's not even necessarily always one of their
top hits, so though generally it is, but you know,
it's the ones that the fans expect to hear every
time they see the group. For example, bon Jovi. Bon
Jovi has performed you Give Love a Bad Name one thousand,
five hundred and seventy times. That's a lot. Aerosmith is

(01:57):
done Walk This Way one thousand and seven h in
sixty one times. Blue Oyster Cold has sung Don't Fear
the Reaper two thousand, six hundred and nineteen times. Def
Leppard has done Rock of Ages two thousand and eighty
one times. Kiss has performed Rock and Roll All Night
two two hundred and twenty eight times. Deep Purple, who

(02:20):
I know if they're touring anymore now, but they toured
for a long long time. They did Smoke on the
Water two thousand, two hundred and twenty three times. But
the king of this is Alice Cooper. Alice Cooper's in
his seventies. He's been touring since I want to say,
nineteen seventy one, nineteen seventy two, something like that. So

(02:40):
he's been touring for over fifty years and he still tours.
He has sung schools out three thousand ninety times. By
the way, nice man, very one of the nicest people
you'd ever want to meet. Son of a preacher. Not
at all like the Alice Cooper image. Anyway, it got

(03:01):
me thinking about songs that I could listen to. I mean,
it's one thing for a rock star to be paid
big money to sing a song three thousand times? How
many times could I listen to a song before I
just didn't want to listen to it anymore? Do you
have a song that you have listened to and you
continue to listen to, and you could hear thousands of

(03:23):
times and you would never ever get tired of it?
I asked that of our listeners this morning on katrh
It's Jim and Conrue.

Speaker 5 (03:30):
I'm gonna say Pink Floyd Money, Ornie, Jimmy Rick from
the East Side. I'd have to say Eric Clapton's Wonderful Tonight.
I get listen to that over and over. It reminds
me of my beautiful wife.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Have a good date, Brd and gents.

Speaker 5 (03:46):
The two songs that I keep on repeat are rough
Boy by zz Top and Old Rose Motel by Great White.
This is Angel Have a good morning.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (03:56):
It's interesting about the zz Top choice. See if you
were tell me what zz Top song could you listen
to over and over again?

Speaker 2 (04:02):
And I get tired of it? I go with Lagrange,
But you know that's me right, all right? Anybody else, Jimmy.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
Stay might?

Speaker 6 (04:10):
This is Marty and Cyprus.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Hey.

Speaker 6 (04:13):
I used to play the song Aha or Take on
Me by Aha. I could listen to that over and
over and over. I used to play it the last
couple of minutes of class and the kids would go
out dancing.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Loved it, loved it.

Speaker 7 (04:27):
This is Chris Lawyer from Southeast Houston, Texas.

Speaker 5 (04:30):
My song I could listen to over and over has
to be Sticks Come Sail a Way Morning, Jimmy. This
is Scott from Magnolia.

Speaker 4 (04:38):
One of the songs I love to hear over and
over is Texas by George Strait always gets me in
a good mood.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Thanks David and Oakridge. What song do I always crank?
Up the volume when I hear it played on the radio.
Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen.

Speaker 4 (04:55):
There you go, little Queen. What's interesting to me, though,
is we have a electic audience, which is kind of
like My musical taste is kind of eclectic too. I
like rock, I like I like country. Never been a
big jazz fan, although I appreciate jazz more as I've

(05:16):
gotten older than I used to. I like forties and
fifties sonafterra style music. I don't listen to it all
that often, but when I do, I appreciate it. You know,
Nat King Cole and and and those types of artists,
and uh, you know the only genre I really don't

(05:37):
i'd really I don't care for rap. I've never cared
for rap, mainly because I just don't find that much
creativity in it. I don't enjoy listening to music where
there's N words and B words and and where if
you edit out you know, the the the the cussing,
there's almost nothing left. That's that's where I guess I

(05:59):
draw the line. That's that's where I go. Now, I'm
not really interested in that. All right, Let's get a
few more.

Speaker 5 (06:03):
Hey, this is Jim from Livingston, Texas. I could listen
to the Bible O'Reilly as many times as you could
play it.

Speaker 8 (06:13):
Happy Birthday, Good morning, Jimmy, this is Teresa from Snook song.
I could listen to over and over Amarillo by Morning
by the King George Strait. I like Lone Star Lockdown
for our retention facility. And Happy birthday, y'all have a

(06:34):
great day.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Bye Yeah, Joe and mont Bellevue. My wife and I
are relatively new Texans, and one song we listened to
over and over and over and over again is You
my Texas?

Speaker 7 (06:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (06:47):
Is it?

Speaker 4 (06:47):
Jeremy from Tombaugh. I could listen to Ed Devlin seven,
any song, huh, hold on Love? Maybe Stairway to Heaven, Yeah,
I could probably. I would include Stairway to Heaven on
my list of songs. I could listen two thousands of
times and not get tired of hearing it. Such a

(07:09):
complex song, so it's long too. It's like I remember
when I used to be a disc jockey way back
in the day. That was the I gotta go take
I gotta go to the bathroom and do number two
kind of a song because you knew, you knew you
could get your business done and the music wouldn't run
out on you, all right, And one of the callers
there mentioned a lone star lockdown. The other question we

(07:29):
asked today was if you could come up with a
name for a Texas ice detention facility, assuming that we
ultimately have one of those. You know, there's Alligator Alcatraz
and now there's the Speedway Slammer. What would you come
up with for Texas? So we maybe we'll talk about
that in their next segment back with more in a moment.
Jimmy Birt Show here running in nine fifty KPRC. All Right,

(08:07):
you see on the show we were talking a little
bit about the Speedway Slammer. That is the name that
they've dubbed the Indiana Ice Detention facility where they've got
I think somewhere name of the thousand beds that they're
setting aside for people who are going to be deported
while they wait to be deported. That goes along with
Alligator Alcatraz. I guess we're starting a franchise now, different names,

(08:33):
but it's a franchise where you could have your own
name depending upon where you are.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
And these things seem to be catching on. These it's
kind of fun.

Speaker 4 (08:42):
So we were talking this morning about, you know, ideas
for names for a Texas facility, and we had some
really good suggestions. Now, the ones that I had come
up with, they were okay, but they weren't super original, like,
for example, playing off the Alcatraz thing I was. I

(09:04):
was thinking, you know, something along the lines of what
was it? Oh? Oh, why am I having a hard time? Remember,
I'll come over a second. But a horned horned lizard
lockdown was one of the ideas I had because I
was thinking of trying to think of, you know, the
animals that we have. You know, Florida's got their gators

(09:25):
and we've got we've got, you know, certain animals that
are native to Texas that I thought might work out.
But you had some better suggestions that I could come
up with a.

Speaker 6 (09:33):
Name for a Texas holding facility would be uh, Crematoria
from out of the Riddick movies.

Speaker 7 (09:44):
Thanks by, And I suggest the name of the facility
be the Hevelina Hotel.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
Hey, this is Mike from Magnolia.

Speaker 5 (09:51):
The Texas Detention Center should be built in Clute, Texas
and should be called the Mosquito Motel.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
Well, this is genus Southwest Florida listening as usual.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
So Texas to me is known for longhorns, So I
really think we should name it Longhorn Lockdown.

Speaker 4 (10:09):
Or Lone Star Lockdown, you know, anything, but I would
agree that those are probably the best choices. It was
also a topic on The Five yesterday, you know, the
idea that maybe they're going to franchise these things out,
so to speak. And as more states get on board
with providing these detention facilities in the states, they're gonna

(10:30):
have to come up with some more names. And Greg
Gutfeldt was more than happy to make some suggestions.

Speaker 9 (10:34):
Alligator Alcatraz sounds kind of scary, but speedway slammers.

Speaker 10 (10:37):
You know, if you want to get me on board,
alliteration will work. I've decided to help for all states
who want.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
New systems of imprisonment.

Speaker 11 (10:48):
California the Golden gulag Orlando, Sunshine Cells, Oklahoma not in alliteration,
Oki Pokey, oh oh wow, yes, Alaska, the Moosecow, Yeah yeah,
Boston Lobster Lockup, Idaho, the Potato Penitentiary, Louisiana that Jambalaya Jail,

(11:08):
and of course Maryland would be the Crab cage, So.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
I think these are all good.

Speaker 10 (11:12):
Again, the very announcements of this thing achieves its own deterrence.
Who's going to come here illegally if you have the
chance of going to the Golden Gulag, even though that
does sound better, but you're expecting a.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Free hotel in Manhattan and it's not coming. And if
you're already here illegally, you.

Speaker 10 (11:27):
Just realize you're running a risk matter of time before
they scoop you up.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
So maybe I should just leave.

Speaker 10 (11:32):
So in this case, you enact a policy, but well
before the policy is enacted.

Speaker 11 (11:36):
The incentive for obeying the law is presented, and.

Speaker 10 (11:39):
That causes people to do the right thing.

Speaker 4 (11:42):
Interesting take on that. Yeah, here's what else I would
like to see. Could we maybe in addition to building
ice detention facilities, maybe we should build some team crime
of facilities, places that we could put juveniles that the
judges don't want a sentence to jail, to put them

(12:03):
either through the school of hard docs or to try
to do an intervention with them. Did you hear what
happened in Washington, DC, and it's got persident Trump thinking
of federal takeover. Is that one of the members of
the Doge team was a victim of an attempted carjacking

(12:25):
and got beaten up. I mean, got beaten to a pulp.
He's gonna survive, He's gonna be okay. But you know,
it was a fifteen year old who did this. You know,
in Washington d C. They've got fourteen to fifteen, sixteen
year old kids that are participating in these robberies and
carjackings and all these other things, and the judicial system

(12:48):
treats them like a fourteen year old and they don't
do anything about it. You know, they don't end up
getting punished, so they have no fear, they don't care.
They just go ahead and keep on doing it. Judge
Jenine peer Bua, who used to be on Fox, was
sworn in as he was attorney for Washington d C.
She was on her first return visit to Fox yesterday

(13:11):
talking about the crime problem in Washington d C. I mean,
it's so bad that President Trump is talking about it,
as they said, federalizing Washington d C, which means maybe,
for example, sending in the National Guard to supplement the police,
trying to get control of crime. The President sees Washington
d C. He remembers Washington d C. The way most

(13:31):
of us who may have visited Washington, d C. When
we were kids. I mean, the coolest vacation that we
ever took, when I was probably ten twelve years old,
was we went on a vacation that included because I
always was a big fan of the Civil War or

(13:51):
a Civil War buff. Shouldn't say a fan, you should
never be a fan of war, but I mean, I've
always was fascinated by the Civil War. So we took
a trip to Gettysburg for that thing, and that was wow.
I was fascinated by that. And then we went to Washington,
d C. And of course this is a long time
ago when I was a little kid, but I remember Washington,

(14:14):
DC's being super clean and just beautiful flowers everywhere in
well manicured grass, and well well cared for buildings, especially
the federal buildings, all looked fantastic. I mean, it was
a place that was just all inspiring. And that's not

(14:34):
all that many decades ago. I don't think it's that
way for the most part anymore. People are are afraid
to go there, but they're afraid of becoming a victim
of crime. So here's a gudge. Jean Piro, the new
US attorney for Washington, ZC. Talking about the crime problem.
What needs to happen.

Speaker 9 (14:51):
First of all, there was another homicide. So we're now
at ninety nine homicide so far this year. There's no
question that Washington, d C. Has an incredible amount, a
credible number of homicides, you know. And you can say
that violence and crime is down, but the truth is
violent is more lethal than it's ever been. And when

(15:11):
we say it's down down from what really okay, we've
got carjackings that are up one hundred and eleven percent.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
The problem in DC.

Speaker 9 (15:19):
And President Trump, in his effort to make DC safe
and beautiful, said to me, I want you to enforce
the law to make sure that there's accountability. And I
spoke to the President yesterday at length about what.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
Was going on here.

Speaker 9 (15:32):
I said, if you're fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen years old,
you get cobbled, as you do in most American Democrat cities.
So I can't charge these people. This young kid who
worked at the White House was beaten to a pulp.
He's got a broken nose, he's got a severe concussion,
he's battered all over his head, okay, by a gang
of bunk punks.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
Ten of them.

Speaker 9 (15:53):
I believe two have been arrested, two fifteen year olds.
None of them come to my office, Laura, because they're
not considered criminals. They go to f family court where
the effort is rehabilitation. The DC Council and the President
is right, they've got to stop their coddling. Number one,
we've got to lower the age of responsibility to fourteen.
I'm tired of having these kids commit crimes and their

(16:14):
crews not gangs in DC. We've got an intern. You
said it, and you're open. He's an intern from a college.
He gets shot going out for McDonald's at ten thirty
at night. This kid is trying to help his girlfriend
or his friend to a car. He gets assaulted and
butt for cop going by. They would have had they
gotten him on the ground, they would have stopped him

(16:35):
and finished him. He was able to stay standing. This
has to end. The Council has this Youth Incarceration Act
where we had a guy who shot a kid on
a bus, not justified with an illegal gun.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
You know what. The sentence was, probation. The judge said,
go to college, Go to college.

Speaker 4 (16:54):
Yeah, yeah, that's college material, all right. How about go
to a trade school after you've served a little time,
you know, in juvenile detention, like I don't know, until
you're at least eighteen years of age. That used to
be the routine. You do something like a carjacking, guess what,
you're going to be in a juvenile detention facility until

(17:16):
you're at least eighteen years of age. They don't do
that anymore. No, they just basically they just let them go. Well,
you're you're fourteen, you don't know any better, you can
go and that's about it. That's about as far as
that gets. Hey, little warning on a scam that's going
on right now. I feel compelled to mention this, maybe

(17:37):
because I'm sensitive to this story because my wife shops
so much on Amazon. Evidently there's a phishing scam going
on where you get texts claiming to be a text
claiming to be from Amazon about an order that you
made that you need to click on. Don't click on it.
It's a phishing scam. It's not Amazon that's doing it.

(17:58):
That's not how Amazon communicates with people. So ignore any
sort of a text that you get from Amazon. If
you have a question about an order you have placed
with them, you know, go online onto their official site
or call or whatever, but don't respond to a phishing scam.
And I can understand why, if you're a scammer, why
you're trying to use Amazon, because a lot of people do,

(18:19):
a lot of people shop on Amazon, so you probably
think that it's you know, probably think it's legit, but
it's not legit. By the way, I said, an all
time record yesterday for spam calls. I don't know what
was going on yesterday. They all came from Virginia. I've
been getting a whole bunch from New York, but these

(18:40):
all came from Virginia. Seventeen phone calls. Seventeen phone calls,
not one message was left. The little trick that I've
done that works fairly well for me because I do
have a phone this in AD zero four area code.
Is anybody that I communicate with on any sort of basis,

(19:02):
even on just an infrequent basis, their phone number, in
their name is in my phone, so their name pops
up when I get a call. If I get a
call and I have not you know, left a message
for somebody to call me, or I've that solicited a
business to call me. If I get a call and
it comes up with a number, especially in NATO four
area code that is unidentified, I know it's not legit,

(19:26):
So I just let it go to voicemail and they,
of course they never leave one. And if they don't
leave a voicemail, then I block that number. Of course,
blocking only does so much good because they just you know,
spoof a whole bunch of other numbers. But have you
noticed the same thing. Are you getting just a just
barrage of these scam calls, these these spam calls. Seventeen

(19:48):
just yesterday seventeen. All right, back with V In a moment,
we're going to visit with the Texas Public Policy Foundation
James Quintero, talk about property taxes, talk about the a
Senate Bill nine which is passed, which is going to
lower the threshold for when you have to let the
people vote on the property tax increase. Back with that

(20:09):
and more in a moment, Jimmy Vert show here a name,
nine fifty KPRC. All right, James Fintarow's with us, he's

(20:29):
with the Texas Public Policy Foundation. You may think there's
nothing going on in Austin, right, now thanks to the
runaway Democrats. Right, well, there are a few things going on,
like Senate Bill nine. James is here to talk about that.
Senate Bill nine is a property tax bill. What does
this bill do?

Speaker 2 (20:46):
James?

Speaker 1 (20:48):
Wow, Good morning, Jimmy, thanks for having me on. You know,
one of the very favorable developments in Austin is the
fact that the legislature is considering how to make tax
cuts last longer. Of course, as we all know, what
we have found ourselves in here lately is a situation

(21:09):
where the legislature cuts taxes and then local governments immediately
move to raise taxes, and they do that through rate
hikes and bond elections and spending shenanigans. Right, so there's
all this upward pressure put on our property tax bills
by local government actions. And so the legislature has been

(21:31):
trying to figure out what can we do to slow
these local tax increases. And one of the things that
they're getting ready to do, I think, is to lower
the voter approval tax rate. And that's a very fancy
way of saying they're going to get ready to adjust
the tax ceiling downward from and right now, what we

(21:56):
have is a we have a property tax revenue limit
that establishes a three and a half percent trigger. So
if you're a local government and you want more than
three and a half percent revenue growth in any particular year,
the legislature requires you to go and get voter permission. Well,
right now, what they're attempting to do is just that

(22:19):
downward justicemidge, moving from three and a half percent to
two and a half percent, figuring that if local governments
need more than that, they're going to have to go
and get permission.

Speaker 4 (22:31):
You know what's going to be interesting to me is
you know they automatically get tax increases when real estate
prices are moving up. Right, we seem to be out
of that type of a growth market right now, I
don't think. Except for a few select, small little spots,
real estate prices have stagnated here in Texas many other
places as well because homes just aren't selling right now.

(22:54):
So technically home values are going in many cases are
going down ten fifteen percent, in some cases even more
in places like Austin they got so overheated. If that happens,
then these communities are going to be getting less revenue,
provided the appraising departments do their job.

Speaker 2 (23:13):
What are they going to do?

Speaker 1 (23:13):
Then? Yeah, great question. You know, for the last I
would say ten to fifteen years, it's actually been really
easy to be a local tax raiser because what you
can do is, or what they've done, is they've effectively
left their tax rates alone and they've let those value

(23:34):
increases generate more money for the government, and then they
can claim, well, shoot, we didn't raise your tax rate.
It's the values that are the problem. Now. The challenge
there is most people don't recognize that local government officials

(23:55):
have complete and near total discretion to adjust their tex rates.
So these folks have chosen not to move those tax
rates down in response to rising values, and they've they've
been afforded a lot of generous revenue increases as a result.

(24:19):
To your point, the market is coming down and that's
going to force a lot of these guys to consider
rate hikes, and so taxpayers need to be aware of this.
You know that we've had a long period of revenue growth.
We ought to be pounding on our local elected officials
to move those rates down and even consider adopting the

(24:44):
no New Revenue tax rate, which would effectively call a
taxpayer timeout and allow everyone on the taxpayer side to
catch their breath.

Speaker 4 (24:54):
I agree that that'd be perfect way to handle it.
I know if you saw what's going on in Florida, Jamespinterra,
But I find this very interesting. They don't call a
doge in Florida, but they have their own They have
their own department head who basically is in charge of
auditing local governments, looking for waste and fraud in other ways,
they're wasting taxpayer dollars, and they are looking at ways

(25:17):
that they can eliminate or severely reduce the property tax.
They want to get to the point where there's no
property taxes on homestead residences. It's only on businesses and
if you have a second home.

Speaker 1 (25:32):
Yeah, I think that's a great idea. You know, it's
very clear that we need to establish a goal with
respect to tax policy, and I think I think that's
one of the things that the legislature currently struggles with,
is identifying a goal and then moving towards that. We
of course have our own vision for the property tax,
which is to utilize state surplus and compress that school

(25:57):
district maintenance and operations tax rate to z z ro,
after which we can have a robust conversation about which
other taxes we should eliminate. Right, the legislature seems half
bought in on that idea, but they also have other
concepts that they're considering and implementing it. So, you know,

(26:20):
we probably need to do some further study on what
Florida is doing and see if it's worthwhile. But it's
very clear that we need to unify behind some sort
of long term vision and then march toward that. Achieving
that goal.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
You know what would be great? Could we how much? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (26:40):
I don't know the math on this, and it's probably
a fairly complicated math. But's let's take a group of individuals,
for example, senior citizens. You know you in this in
the great state of Texas, you never really own your home.
As long as you have property taxes. The government owns
your home because if you don't pay those property taxes
or can't pay those property tax is, they can basically

(27:01):
foreclose on you to get the tax revenue. So what
about the idea of eliminating property taxes on your homestead
residence after the age of whatever you wanted to be
sixty five, seventy, whatever that age is, you haven't had kids,
in the school system in decade upon decade, at some
point you should be able to free and clear own

(27:23):
your own home.

Speaker 3 (27:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
I think that's definitely a worthwhile concept to explore. One
of the concerns I would have with that approach, just
at the outset, is using tax policy to choose winners
and losers. And this is one of the reasons why
we actually say we at the Foundation favor tax rate compression,

(27:49):
which is just a fancy way of saying the state
is buying down those tax rates until we get to zero,
and they're keeping them everywhere by moving in that direction,
By by utilizing a tax compression approach, we're not choosing
winners and losers in the marketplace. Everyone is having their
tax rates go down.

Speaker 4 (28:11):
Okay, I like my idea better, but that's me. James. Thanks,
is always been good to talk to you. Take care.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
Thanks, Jimmy, appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
You bet.

Speaker 4 (28:20):
James Quintaro for the Texas Public Policy Foundation back when
for in a moment, Jimmy Barrendam nine to fifty KBRC.

(28:48):
All right, let's talk about this big investment that Apple
is going to make in the United States, six hundred
billion dollars. They are talking about having a big, huge factory,
last factory in Kentucky. They're talking about doing AI here

(29:09):
in Houston. Off some more thoughts on that, And in
just a moment, Jesse Waters on his primetime show last night,
shared a clip of President Trump with the CEO of
Apple and they were talking about all the things that
Apple's going to be doing in this country. Let me
share that with you and then I'll have some more
thoughts on that.

Speaker 7 (29:27):
I think that it will invest six hundred billion dollars
just with the b in the United States over the
next four years.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
It has never been anything like it.

Speaker 7 (29:37):
And even you, that's even a lot of money for you.
These investments will directly create more than twenty thousand brand
new American jobs.

Speaker 12 (29:45):
Apple says they have a new home the Bluegrass State for.

Speaker 13 (29:50):
The first time ever, every single new iPhone and every
single new Apple Watch sold anywhere in the world will
cont hanging cover glass made in Kentucky.

Speaker 12 (30:03):
It'll be the largest smart glass assembly line in the world.
And Apple's breaking ground on new AI factories in Houston
and investing big money in North Carolina, Iowa, and Oregon.
The Apple CEO also announced that the company will only
be buying rare earth magnets from America, not China.

Speaker 13 (30:23):
We're going to keep hiring in America, and we're going
to keep building technologies at the heart of our products
right here in America, because we're a proud American company
and we believe deeply in the promise of this great nation.

Speaker 12 (30:38):
The panicins said it couldn't be done. Apple had to
use cheap foreign labor.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
They were wrong.

Speaker 12 (30:44):
They said, these billion dollar pledges, we're just announcements to
curry favor with Trump.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
They were wrong.

Speaker 12 (30:50):
They've been wrong about everything.

Speaker 7 (30:53):
They watched this group of people on CNN and MSDNC
two the same thing where they say, well have gone up,
Because they haven't gone up, they've gone down. I'm telling
you the thing that's gone up is stuck stock prices
and success of our country.

Speaker 4 (31:10):
Now, they mentioned Houston for ai AI. Here's the first
thing I thought of when they said that. First of all,
would we love to have a bunch of ai apple
jobs here in Houston, Texas? Yes, we would, of course
we would. What am I stupid? Of course we would.

(31:30):
Here's the problem, though, and it continues. It's a problem
that we're not really doing anything about at least, I
haven't seen us really do much of anything about it.
AI takes up a lot of energy. It's like cryptocurrency.
It takes up a lot of energy in order to

(31:52):
be able to do it. So where is this energy
going to come from? You know, we've welcomed somewhere between
one and two million new Texas residents in the last
over the course less decade or so, We've got all
these companies moving to Texas. We have power needs that
continue to grow. We are getting away with it so far,

(32:17):
but we really haven't addressed it in a long term way.
I mean, there's been some discussions of small nuclear facilities,
you know, the size that can run a neighborhood or example,
or a power or a plant of some sort, you know,
a manufacturing facility. Maybe we'll be doing more of that,

(32:40):
although I would have to think the federal government would
have to be involved. You better do it now while
you have the Trumpe administration in there. But we really
haven't addressed the overall power needs of the state. And
we're going to have nothing but more and more demand
on the power grid. So at some point we better
get to that. Just plan that seed. You want Apple
to build AI here. You want other companies to come

(33:01):
here and provide great paying jobs American manufacturing here in Texas,
You've got to make sure you've got the infrastructure. The
infrastructure has to exist in order to be able to
do that. So let's hope somebody is thinking ahead on
trying to make this whole thing work. All right, And
one more story for you today before we call it today,

(33:25):
and that is the positive effect of the Trump tariffs.
Because the mainstream media all they want to talk about
with Trump tariffs is you know.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
Oh, this is going to cost you more, and that's
going to cost you more.

Speaker 4 (33:36):
And what they what they haven't seen, is what the
end result is. For example, do you think Apple would
be building a big glass manufacturing plant in Kentucky in
an AI facility in Houston if if there were no tariffs,
if they could continue to build things overseas with cheaper labor.

(33:56):
It's it's not cheaper anymore. They're coming They're coming back
to the United States because now it makes sense. Now
it makes sense. And that's true in a whole variety
of different businesses, including by the way, steel and other
manufacturing where the tariffs are high. In order to try
to protect American steel companies. Here's the CEO of one

(34:18):
steel company talking about the positive impacts of the Trump tariffs.

Speaker 14 (34:22):
If you're an owner of a Japanese company, or an
owner of a French or German company, you're going to
say to yourself, look, I got higher energy costs in
Europe or Japan, I have much more regulations.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
My taxes are very very burdensome.

Speaker 14 (34:38):
However, if I move to America, which is my biggest market,
I won't have that headwind of fifteen percent tariffs. So
it makes all kinds of sense to move quickly and
build in America so you don't have the fifteen percent tariff.
And they're going to start building factories in America, hiring
local American workers. They're going to be paying eighty grand,

(35:01):
ninety grand, one hundred grand a year in compensation to
build in America. And then they're going to have to
buy local boxes from the local box company, palettes from
the local pallette company. They're going to buy baskets for
Marlon Steel. We have factories in Indiana, factories in Michigan,
factories in Baltimore.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
We're going to be supplying them.

Speaker 14 (35:20):
Other factories are going to be supplying these new factories
being built in our country. All of a sudden, these
American factory workers are going to have all kinds of
opportunities for job growth. Careers are going to become much
more solid. There's going to be less layoffs. There may
be layoffs overseas, but there are not going to be
layoffs in America. It's a very optimistic time for American manufacturing.

(35:44):
It's a wonderful time to be an American factory worker.

Speaker 4 (35:47):
That's the CEO of Marlon Steele's name was Drew Greenblad.
I think he's absolutely right. Hey, listen, you'll have a
great day. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow morning breaking
early five am over on news Radio seven forty k H.
We are back here at for on a M nine
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