Joel Griffith - Economist / Senior Fellow, Advancing American Freedom Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, Aaron Rodgers can quarterback my team anytime because he
does have the right mindset on that. Thank you, Cliff.
So how about it? More Americans say they are doing better,
or another way to say it is fewer Americans say
that they're doing worse, that their family's financial health has
gotten worse over the past year. According to a May
survey taken by Yugov for the Economists the Sheriff Registered voters,

(00:21):
voters saying that their household financial situation is worse than
it was a year ago fell to thirty one percent.
That's the lowest things January of twenty twenty two, according
to the survey, released on May eighteenth. Here with reaction
Joel Griffith, Economists Senior fellow at Advancing American Freedom, Joe, good.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Morning, Hey, good morning. How are you doing.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
We're doing great, Thanks for the time, and we're all
doing better now apparently, and our household budgets despite the
threats and the fears that we're trying to be stoked
over the tariff policy of the president. What do you
read here?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Well, unfortunately that was the very very misleading headline. I
took some time to look at the poll yesterday. What
the poll actually shows is that by nearly a ratio
of two to one, Americans feel as if the situation
is actually worse today for them than better. And what
the headline does that says, well, oh, look, the percenters

(01:16):
of people who say things are getting worse for them
is a few points lower than what the poll showed
last year, but that does not change the fact that
overall American families are feeling that their situation is deteriorating
today versus a year ago. And even more troubling, the
poll asks the citizens of this country whether or not

(01:37):
that they expect their financial situation will be better or
worse next year, and the poll shows a lot of
concern there. We're far fewer than fewer than thirty five
percent of people feel that their situation will be better
this year than right now. So I think this actually
reflects a lot of them. Certainly reflects a very large

(01:59):
tax it's like in the form of tariffs to effect,
and it also reflects that Americans are still suffering the
consequences of the Biden era inflation. There's a lot of
blame to go around here, and I think it's incumbent
on our politicians to get our Fiscal House in order
to actually reform spending, to actually pursue the mission of
DOGE and actually and that's that into law, or else

(02:21):
we can expect government spending levels to induce even more
inflation in the years to come.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
It sounds like you'd be a no vote on the
Big Beautiful Bill.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, look, what I do like about the Big Beautiful
Bill is that it does make permanent the Trump Pence
tax cuts, and we know that those led to growth,
That led to family income growing, it led to economic growth.
What I don't like about the Big Beautiful Bill are
the fact that it delays the repeal of the Green
New Deal that Biden and the Democrats put into effect.

(02:53):
It actually delays the phase out for several years of
those subsidies. We've got a Republican House, we've got a
Republican resident who thankfully has been very pro energy. There's
no excuse not to repeal that Green New Deal on
day one.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
I agree with that aspect of it. And the thing
when you talk about a reconciliation package like this, obviously
they're going to be things everybody wants and they're going
to be things that everybody doesn't want. In other words,
everybody might be different. Nobody's going to get everything that
they do want. I don't like the spending, I don't
like the what you just pointed out about the Green
New Deal. I do like the tax cuts. I do
like the border money. I do like so many of

(03:31):
the other elements of this that the President wanted to
get done. And they can't wait very much longer. It's
already nearing the end of May, and he's only got
until twenty twenty six to get everything right. Otherwise we
lose the mid terms and have no chance whatsoever to
do anything in the last two years. Agree.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, Well, and it's important to remember that the tax
cuts for individuals that went into effect under the first
Trump administration, those are set to expire at the end
of this year, meaning that you're all of your listeners,
whether they're in the upper class or whether they're just
whether they're making just typical income, everybody's income is set

(04:11):
to experience an income tax height at the end of December.
So it's very important that we get this done now. Now,
what I'm concerned is probably a specialist in Texas voters,
is that this legislation, due to a handful of Republican
Congress people from blue states in Illinois, California.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
New York.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
It increases the state and local tax deduction from ten
thousand dollars to forty thousand. And what that means is
if you're a resident of the state like Texas, Tennessee,
Florida that has either no income tax or a low
income tax, it means that your family to pay up
to eight thousand dollars more a year in federal taxes.

(04:54):
In a family in New Jersey that's similarly situated. Because
New Jersey is an official managed they have a lot
higher state and local taxes, and increasing the deduction for
satan local taxes means that somebody in New Jersey is
going to pay far left in federal income tax In Texas,
it makes no sense. You've made responsible decisions in your state,

(05:15):
You've kept your tass is low. Why should you be
forced to subsidize the mistakes of somebody in New Jersey.
I think that's very unfortunate. That's made the tax package.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
It's a great point, and that's something that of course
is going to be a part of what they hammer
out as the Senate takes this on now and try
to figure out what to keep and what to strike,
and hopefully these things will be repaired before a final vote.
Joel Griffith, economist and senior fellow at Advancing American Freedom. Joel,
thanks for the.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
Insights, Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
You got it five point fifty seven now in Houston's
Morning News